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Bessie HeadSouth Africa, 1937-1986

When Rain Clouds Gather1969, EN, Botswana

The poverty-striken village of Golema Mmidi, in the heart of ruralBotswana, is a haven to the exiles gathered there. When a politicalrefugee from South Africa joins forces with an English agriculturalexpert, the time-honoured subsistence farming is challenged.

Table of contents (12)1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12

BESSIE HEAD, one of Africa’s best-known women writers, was bornin South Africa in 1937, the result of an ‘illicit’ union between a blackman and a white woman. Her life was a traumatic one, and she drewheavily upon her own experiences for her novels. She was looked afterby a foster family until she was thirteen, and then attended a missionschool. She trained as a teacher. After four years’ teaching she took ajob as a journalist for Drum magazine, but an unsuccessful marriageand her involvement in the trial of a friend led her to apply for a teach-ing post in Botswana, where she took up permanent exile. Her precari-ous refugee status lasted fifteen years until she was granted Bot-swanan citizenship in 1979.

Botswana is the backdrop for all three of her novels. WhenRain Clouds Gather, her first novel, based on her time as a refugee liv-ing at the Bamangwato Development Farm, was published in 1969.This was followed by Maru (1971) and the intense and powerful auto-biographical work A Question of Power (1974). Her short stories ap-peared as The Collector of Treasures in 1977, and in 1981 Serowe: Vil-lage of the Rain Wind was published, a historical portrait of a hundredyears of a community in Botswana.

Bessie Head died in 1986, aged 49. A Woman Alone, a collec-tion of autobiographical writings, Tales of Tenderness and Power andThe Cardinals were published posthumously.

Note

Botswana is the name of the country;The Batswana are the Tswana people who live there;A Motswana is an individual member of the Tswana tribe.

One

The little Barolong village swept right up to the border fence. Oneof the huts was built so close that a part of its circular walltouched the barbed-wire fencing. In this hut a man had been sit-

ting since the early hours of dawn. He was waiting until dark when hewould try to spring across the half-mile gap of no-man’s-land to theBotswana border fence and then on to whatever illusion of freedom layahead. It was June and winter and bitterly cold, and his legs were toolong to allow for pacing in the cramped space of the hut. Every halfhour the patrol van of the South African border police sped past withsirens wailing, and this caused an unpleasant sensation in hisstomach.

I’ll soon have a stomach-ache if I go on like this, he thought.His nerves weren’t so good, too easily jangled by the irritations

of living. In fact, the inner part of him was a jumble of chaotic discord,very much belied by his outer air of calm, lonely self-containment. Theonly way you could sense this inner discord was through a trick he hadof slightly averting his face as though no man was his brother orworthy of trust. Otherwise, his face was rather pleasing to the eye. Itwas often wryly amused. Its general expression was one of absorbed,attentive listening. His long thin falling-away cheekbones marked himas a member of either the Xhosa or Zulu tribe.

Towards noon, when there was a lull in the wailing sirens, theold man who owned the hut pushed open the door, letting in a shaft ofsunlight. He held in his hands a steaming bowl of thick porridge. Theman by now had a dreadful stomach-ache, and the sight of the fooddid not immediately please him.

“Well, how are you, son?” the old man asked.“I’m all right,” the man lied. It did not seem quite dignified to

admit that he had stomach trouble.“I’ve brought you a little food,” the old man said.

“Thank you,” the man said. “But could I go out for a while andstretch my legs?” He had to ease the painful knots in his stomach.

“It’s not safe,” the old man said, “I can’t guarantee who may ormay not be a spy. Once you are caught here it will make it unsafe forthose who come on behind. I would no doubt go to jail too.”

The young man was bent over the hand-carved stool on whichhe sat, and the old man thought he might be cold.

“Why not take a little brandy?” he asked sympathetically. “Iknow a place nearby, and I can send for some if you want it.”

The man looked up, relieved, and nodded his head. He took outa pound note and handed it to the old man. The old man smiledwidely. He had not known of one fugitive yet who did not need it.Besides, with a little brandy inside they soon became talkative, and heliked all the stories. He stored them up against the day when he wouldbe free to surprise his village with his vast fund of information on fu-gitives. He closed the door and shuffled away. A dog barked nearby.There was the chatter of women’s voices, and music and singing. Achild began to cry loudly. Men laughed, and the man in the hut wasbriefly surprised that a whole village could live in the wail of thosesirens that had tied his stomach in such tight knots. Soon the old manshuffled back again. Because relief was near at hand he noticed howthe dust of the mud floor rose up and shimmered and danced in thesunlight as the old man pushed open the door. The old man had notonly the brandy but a bowl of food for himself, as well. It pleased theyoung man in the shadows that he did not close the door because assoon as he had taken a few careful sips from the bottle, he couldclearly discern the gentle, interweaving dance pattern of the sunlitdust. The slow, almost breathless rhythm eased away the knots ofstomach trouble, and he unconsciously smiled to himself in this sud-den warm glow of expansive relief that was now his abdomen.

Noting this the old man said, “I say, son, what’s your name?”“Makhaya,” the young man replied.The old man screwed up his eyes, perplexed. The sound and

meaning of the name were unfamiliar to him. Tswana-speaking tribesdominated the northern Transvaal.

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“I don’t know it,” the old man said, shaking his head.“It’s Zulu,” the young man said, “I’m a Zulu.” And he laughed

sarcastically at the thought of calling himself a Zulu.“But you speak Tswana fluently,” the old man persisted.Quite drunk by now the young man said rather crazily, “Yes, we

Zulus are like that. Since the days of Shaka we’ve assumed that thewhole world belongs to us; that’s why we trouble to learn any man’slanguage. But look here, old man, I’m no tribalist. My parents are –that’s why they saddled me with this foolish name. Why not call meSamuel or Johnson, because I’m no tribalist.”

“Jo!” said the old man, using a Tswana expression of surprise.“And what’s wrong with the tribe?”

“I have a list of grievances against it. I haven’t got time to go in-to them now…” He paused, trying to collect his thoughts in the haze ofbrandy that was clouding his brain. “Makhaya,” he said. “That tribalname is the wrong one for me. It is for one who stays home, yet theygave it to me and I have not known a day’s peace and contentment inmy life.”

“It’s because of education,” the old man said, nodding his headwisely. “They should not have given you the education. Take away thelittle bit of education and you will be only too happy to say, ‘Mama,please find me a tribal girl and let us plough.’ It’s only the educationthat turns a man away from his tribe.”

The conversation threatened to become a vast, meaningless,rambling digression. Good storyteller that he was, the old manbrought it back to the main points at hand. Why was the young manhere? What was he fleeing from? A jail sentence, perhaps?

The young man looked at him suspiciously, “I’m just out ofjail,” he said. He closed the brandy bottle and picked up the bowl ofporridge. And then some anxiety seemed to jolt him for he put thebowl down again, searched the inside pocket of his coat, and took out alittle scrap of paper. He struck a match and burned the paper. Then hepicked up the bowl of porridge and would not utter another word. Theold man was left to put two and two together. Perhaps scraps of paperand jail sentences were the same thing in the young man’s mind. Why

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did he jump so at the thought of one tiny scrap? And what was thisabout tribalism? What about the white man who was the only recog-nized enemy of everyone?

“Oh, so you have no complaints about the white man?” the oldman said, struggling to pry some information out of the tightly shutmouth.

The young man only turned his face slightly, yet the light oflaughter danced in his eyes.

“Ha, I see now,” the old man said, pretending disappointment.“You are running away from tribalism. But just ahead of you is theworst tribal country in the world. We Barolongs are neighbours of theBatswana, but we cannot get along with them. They are a thick-headedlot who think no further than this door. Tribalism is meat and drink tothem.”

The young man burst out laughing. “Oh, Papa,” he said. “I justwant to step on free ground. I don’t care about people. I don’t careabout anything, not even the white man. I want to feel what it is like tolive in a free country and then maybe some of the evils in my life willcorrect themselves.”

The wail of the approaching sirens sounded again. After theyhad swept past, the old man left the hut, closing the door behind him.Makhaya was left alone with his thoughts, and since these threatenedto trouble him, he kept on numbing them with a little brandy sippedstraight from the bottle.

The sun set early in winter and by seven o’clock it was pitchdark. Makhaya made ready to cross the patch of no-man’s-land. Thetwo border fences were seven-foot-high barriers of close, tautly drawnbarbed wire. He waited in the hut until he heard the patrol van pass.Then he removed his heavy overcoat and stuffed it into a large leatherbag. He stepped out of the hut and pitched the leather bag over thefence, grasped hold of the barbed wire, and heaved himself up andover. Picking up his bag, he ran as fast as he could across the path ofground to the other fence, where he repeated the performance. Thenhe was in Botswana.

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In his anxiety to get as far away from the border as fast as pos-sible, he hardly felt the intense, penetrating cold of the frosty night.For almost half an hour he sped, blind and deaf and numbed to any-thing but his major fear. The wail of the siren brought him to an ab-rupt halt. It sounded shockingly near and he feared that his crashingpace would draw attention to himself. But the lights of the patrol vanswept past and he knew, from timing the patrols throughout the longtorturous day, that he had another half hour of safety ahead of him. Ashe relaxed a little, his mind grasped the fact that he had been suckingin huge gulps of frozen air and that his lungs were flaming with pain.He removed the heavy coat from the bag and put it on. He also took afew careful sips from the brandy bottle and then continued on his wayat a more leisurely pace.

He had not walked more than a few paces when he again cameto an abrupt halt. The air was full of the sound of bells, thousands andthousands of bells, tinkling and tinkling with a purposeful, monoton-ous rhythm. Yet there was not a living thing in sight to explain wherethe sound was coming from. He was quite sure that around him and infront of him were trees and more trees, thorn trees that each time heapproached too near ripped at his clothes. But how to explain thebells, unearthly sounding bells in an apparently unlived-in wasteland?

Oh, God, I’m going crazy, he thought.He looked up at the stars. They winked back at him, silently,

blandly. He could even make out some of the star patterns of thesouthern constellations. Surely, if his mind was suddenly disorderedthrough the tensions of the day, the stars would appear disorderedtoo? Surely everything became mixed up to a person who had just losthis mind? He shook his head, but the bells continued their monoton-ous, rhythmic tinkling. He knew some pretty horrifying stories abouttribal societies and their witch doctors who performed their ghoulishrites by night. But witch doctors were human, and nothing, howeverodd and perverse, need be feared if it was human. Taking this as a pos-sible explanation of the bells restored his balance, and he continuedon his way, keeping an alert eye open for the fires or huts of the witchdoctors.

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Soon he saw a fire in the bush, a small bit of self-containedlight in the overwhelming darkness. He headed straight for it, and ashe approached, the flickering, crackling light outlined the shape of twomud huts and the forms of a woman and a child. It was the womanwho looked up as she became aware of approaching footsteps. Hestood still, not wishing to alarm her. She appeared to be very old. Hersmall eyes were completely sunk in the wrinkles of her face. The childwas a girl of about ten who kept her head bent, idly drawing a patternwith a stick on the ground. He greeted the old woman in Tswana, po-litely calling her mother in a quiet, reassuring voice.

She did not return the greeting. Instead she demanded, “Yes,what do you want?” She had a loud, shrill, uncontrolled voice, and hedisliked her immediately.

“I was looking for shelter for the night,” he said.She kept quiet, yet stared fixedly at the direction from which

his voice came. Then she burst out in that loud, jarring voice, “I sayyou are one of the spies from over the border.”

Since he did not respond she became quite excited, raising hervoice even louder. “Why else do people wander about at night, unlessthey are spies? All the spies in the world are coming into our country. Itell you, you are a spy! You are a spy!”

It was the shouting that unnerved him. The border was stillvery near, and at any moment now the patrol van would pass.

“How can you embarrass me like this?” he said in a quiet, des-perate voice. “Are women of your country taught to shout at men?”

“I’m not shouting,” she shrilled, but in a slightly lower voice.His words and consistently quiet speech were beginning to impressher.

“Well, my ears must be deceiving me, mother,” he said,amused. “Tell me whether you can offer me shelter or not. I’m no spy.I’ve just lost my way in the darkness.”

The fixed stare never wavered. She said, curtly, “I have a sparehut. You may use it but only for tonight. You must also pay. I want tenshillings.”

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She held out a shrivelled old hand, cold and hard with yearsand years of labour. He stepped towards the fire and handed her a ten-shilling note. She reached behind her for a small carved stool and said,“Sit here. The child will sweep the hut and put down some blankets.”

The child stood up obediently and disappeared into one of thehuts. He sat down opposite the crude, rude phenomenon who contin-ued staring at him. The wail of the patrol siren again sounded quitenear, almost behind his back. He held her glance calmly.

“I know you are a spy,” she said. “You are running away fromthem.”

He smiled. “Perhaps you just want to annoy me. But as you cansee, I’m not easily annoyed.”

“Where do you come from?” she asked.“From over the border,” he said. “I have an appointment to

start work in this country tomorrow.”“Why didn’t you come by train?” she asked suspiciously.“But my home is so near, in the Barolong village,” he lied.She turned her head and spat on the ground as an eloquent

summing up of what she thought of him. Then she sat with her headaverted as though she had abruptly dismissed him from her thoughts.The bells were still tinkling away.

“What are all those bells for?” he asked.“They are tied around the necks of the cattle because they are

grazing freely in the bush,” she said.He felt ashamed at the thought of how they had terrified him

and they were only cow bells. He also wanted to laugh out loud, and tosuppress this he said conversationally, “I’m not an owner of cattle. Isuppose the bells are there to locate them if they get lost?”

“Of course,” she said scornfully. “Cattle wander a great distancewhile grazing.”

Meanwhile the child had crept quietly back to the fireside.Half-consciously his gaze wandered in her direction, and he was start-ling to find the child looking at him with a full bold stare. There wassomething very unchildlike about it and it displeased him. His glance

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flickered back to the old woman. She was staring again and he evenimagined that he saw a gleam in the sunken old eyes.

My God, he thought, what a pair of vultures they are.Aloud he said, “Is the room ready now, mother?”She merely turned and pointed to one of the huts. He stood up

immediately, relieved to be rid of their unpleasant company. He strucka match as he entered the dark hut. It seemed to be a storage shed. Alarge grain basket stood in one corner, and there was a number ofearthenware pots encircling the room. A space had been cleared on thefloor on which were placed wide square covers made of animal skins.He struck another match to take a better look at what he was to sleepon. The feel of it was like thick soft velvet, squares upon squares of thesewn-together skins of hundreds of wild animals. He only removed hisshoes and overcoat. The overcoat he flung over the top cover for extrawarmth. The bed seemed well worth ten shillings to him because itwas very warm.

He lay on his back staring up at the dark, too tense to sleep. Agood gulp of brandy would have knocked him out cold but he darednot touch it. He distrusted the suspicious old hag. She seemed to knowtoo much about the border. What would prevent her from steppingdown there and informing the police? There was good money in it, ifshe knew about that too. A cold sweat broke out on him as he ima-gined her at the fence, shouting at the patrol van. And what about thechild and her awful, unchildlike stare? He listened alertly to theirevery movement. For a time there was a low murmured conversation,and then he heard the fire being scraped out. Then the door of the nexthut was pushed open. The old hag coughed a bit. There was more mur-mured conversation and a brief silence. Then the door was openedagain and he could tell that it was the child who had gone out becausethe old hag was coughing inside.

He lay quite still as the door of his hut was carefully and quietlypushed open by the child and equally quietly and carefully closed be-hind her. She dropped lightly down on her knees and moved herhands over the covers until they reached his face.

“What do you want?” he asked.

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The hands darted back and there was a brief silence; then shesaid, “You know.”

“I don’t,” he said.She kept quiet as though puzzling this out. At last she said, “My

grandmother won’t mind as long as you pay me.”“Go away,” he said, abashed, humiliated. “You’re just a child.”But she just sat there and would not move. He really could not

stand it. He raised himself and struck a match and took out a ten-shil-ling note and handed it to her.

“Here’s the money,” he said fiercely. “Now go away.”Her eyes were wide and uncomprehending in the brief glare of

the match, but she grasped the note and fled. From the hut next doorhe heard the brief plaintive explanation of the child and the loud sur-prised chatter of the old woman.

“You mean he gave you the money for nothing?” she said, be-side herself with excitement. “This is a miracle! I have not yet known aman who did not regard a woman as a gift from God! He must be mad!I know it all along in my heart that he was mad! Let us lock the door toprotect ourselves from the madman!”

What a loathsome woman, he thought, and yet how naive shewas in her evil. He had known many such evils in his lifetime. Hethought they were created by poverty and oppression, and he hadspent the last two years in jail in the belief that, in some way, a protestwould help to set the world right. It was the mentality of the old hagthat ruined a whole continent – some sort of clinging, ancestral, tribalbelief that a man was nothing more than a grovelling sex organ, thatthere was no such thing as privacy of soul and body, and that no ordin-ary man would hesitate to jump on a mere child.

He had sisters at home, one almost the same age as the childand some a few years older. But he was the eldest in the family, andaccording to custom he had to be addressed as ‘Buti’, which means‘Elder Brother’, and treated with exaggerated respect. As soon as hisfather died he made many changes in the home, foremost of whichwas that his sisters should address him by his first name and associatewith him as equals and friends. When his mother had protested he had

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merely said, “Why should men be brought up with a false sense of su-periority over women? People can respect me if they wish, but only if Iearn it.”

For all his strange new ideas, the family had not wanted to partwith him. In fact he had left his mother in a state of complete collapse,and though at the time he had pretended to be unmoved by all thetears and sighs, it was all this that had made him drink brandythroughout the afternoon. His reasons for leaving were simple: hecould not marry and have children in a country where black men werecalled ‘boy’ and ‘dog’ and ‘kaffir’. The continent of Africa was vastwithout end and he simply felt like moving out of a part of it that wasmentally and spirtually dead through the constant perpetuation offalse beliefs.

I might like it here, was his last thought before falling into adeep, exhausted sleep.

It was not yet dawn when he arose and left. In the faint earlylight he saw a little footpath leading away from the huts, and becauseit wound its way northward and away from the border, he decided tofollow it in the hope that it would lead him somewhere.

At first not a thing stirred around him. It was just his own self,his footsteps and the winding footpath. Even the sunrise took him bysurprise. Somehow he had always imagined the sun above hills, shin-ing down into valleys and waking them up. But here the land was quiteflat, and the sunshine crept along the ground in long shafts of goldlight. It kept on pushing back the darkness that clung around the trees.Suddenly, the sun sprang clear of all entanglements, a single whitepulsating ball, dashing out with one blow the last traces of the night.So sudden and abrupt was the sunrise that the birds had to pretendthey had been awake all the time. They set up a shrill piercing clamourall at once, thousands and thousands of them. For all their clamourthey turned out to be small dun-coloured creatures with speckled dun-coloured breasts, and their flight into the deep blue sky was just like somany tiny insects. More secretive types of birds lived in the depth ofthe bush, and these were very beautiful, ranging in colour from ashimmering midnight blue to bright scarlet and molten gold. Unlike

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the chattering little dun-coloured fellows, they called to each other insoft low tones and, being curious about his footsteps, frequentlyflashed briefly on to the footpath ahead of him.

I wonder what the birds live on, he thought. The land on eitherside of the footpath was loose windblown sand and thornbush. Oftenthe thornbush emerged as tall, straight-trunked trees, topped by anumbrella of black, exquisitely shaped branches, but more often it grewin short low tufts like rough wild grass. Long white thorns grew on thebranches, at the base of which were tightly packed clusters of paleolive-green leaves. And that was all. As far as the eye could see it wasonly a vast expanse of sand and scrub but somehow bewitchinglybeautiful. Perhaps he confused it with his own loneliness. Perhaps itwas those crazy little birds. Perhaps it was the way the earth had ad-orned herself for a transient moment in a brief splurge of gold. Or per-haps he simply wanted a country to love and chose the first thing athand. But whatever it was, he simply and silently decided that all thisdryness and bleakness amounted to home and that somehow he hadcome to the end of a journey.

The little footpath spilled out suddenly on to a wide dirt road,and he had not walked far before a truck came lumbering up behindhim. Like the gaudy-hued birds, the truck driver was curious aboutsuch an early traveller. He stopped the truck and called out, “Are yougoing to the station?”

“Yes,” Makhaya said.“It’s always best to start early in the morning because the jour-

ney is long,” the man said. “But you are lucky this time, I can give youa lift.”

Later, he blessed the man silently. By truck it was a two-hourjourney with not a hut or a living being in sight. On foot it might wellhave taken the whole day. The only discomfort about the journey wasthat he had to invent lie after lie. The truck driver was talkative andkept on prying into his personal affairs.

“You’ve been to see relatives at the meraka?” the truck driverasked.

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The word meraka was unknown to Makhaya, and it was onlylater that he was to learn that it was a cattle post. But he said, “Yes.”

“And are they well?”“No,” he lied. “My mother is ill.”“Jo! And why doesn’t she go into hospital?”“She’s a very stubborn old woman.”This seemed to be a huge joke to the truck driver. He laughed

loudly. Then he said, “I see. You look like a teacher to me.”“I am,” Makhaya lied again.“In what village do you teach?”“I’m not teaching at present. I’ve resigned to start a business.”The truck driver looked at him with interest. He half-averted

his head, ill at ease. Should he tell the man he was a refugee? His ex-periences of the previous night had made him distrustful.

“I say,” his questioner went on, “what’s your tribe?”He hesitated, trying to think of the nearest relationship to Zu-

lus in the northern tribes. “Ndebele,” he said.“Don’t be ashamed to mention it,” the truck driver said sym-

pathetically. “Foreigners are always welcome in our country.”And so it went on and on until Makyaha was exhausted from

having to invent so many lies. He almost cried with relief when thetruck-driver dropped him off at a railway crossing and continued onhis journey to some unknown destination. Makhaya stood for a mo-ment at the crossing to get his bearings. A sprawling village of mudhuts was on one side of him and the railway station on the other.Clustered near the station were whatever brick buildings there were. Itwas a dismal-looking place and the brown dust of the dirt roads andfootpaths was on everything. He was very hungry and stopped apasser-by and asked where he might buy some food. The man pointedto a filthy-looking restaurant which sold porridge and a plate of boiledmeat for a shilling. A sign painted outside the dreadful eating houseamused him. It said: HOTELA.

Because he had entered the country illegally he had to report tothe police, register himself as a refugee, and apply for political asylum.Again, a passer-by pointed out the police station among the cluster of

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brick buildings. A British flag still flew above the small whitewashedbuilding. The country was going through a year of self-governmentprior to complete independence. He stepped into a small office abovewhich was written: STATION COMMANDER.

A British colonial police officer sat behind a desk on which waspiled a jumble of papers. A notice on the wall above his head pro-claimed: WORK FASCINATES ME. I CAN SIT AND WATCH IT FORHOURS. He had quite a pleasant, good-looking face with arched eye-brows and green eyes. As commander of the station with no superiorto jump to attention for, he exuded a great air of self-importance. Hestared impassively at Makhaya for some time, then he said, “So youhave come?”

Makhaya could make nothing of this remark and kept quiet.“It’s past eleven o’clock and I’ve delayed my tea watting for

you,” he said. “In fact, I was just about to come and pick you up. Sitdown, Mr Makhaya Maseko.”

“How do you know my name?” Makhaya asked, startled.“I know everything,” he said coolly. “I also want to impress you,

so that you don’t start any of your funny tricks around here. You maythink this country is a backwater, but we have the most efficient intel-ligence service in southern Africa. We also read the newspapers.”

He bent down and picked up a newspaper that had been care-lessly flung on the floor. Makhaya’s picture was on the front page un-der a headline: DANGEROUS SABOTEUR FLEES BANNING ORDER. “I’m notdangerous and I’m not a saboteur,” he said, annoyed. “I know,” the of-ficer said. “You just dream about it. You just walk about with littlepieces of paper describing how you’re going to blow everything up.”

He assumed a businesslike air searching among the jumble onhis desk for a paper and pencil.

“You will have to answer a few routine questions,” he said. Hepaused, then said, “Do you like Kwame Nkrumah?”

The complete unexpectedness of the question took Makhaya offguard and an automatic ‘No’ slipped out before he had collected hiswits. The officer grinned and relaxed into his casual manner.

“That’s all,” he said. “Fill in this form and you can go.”

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Makhaya sauntered out, uncertain of what to do next. Quitenear the railway station was a post office. Around the post office was afence, and an old man sat outside the fence, squatting very low on hishaunches. He sat quite still, staring ahead with calm, empty eyes, andhe looked so lordly for all his tattered coat and rough cowhide shoesthat Makhaya smiled and walked up to him and greeted him. The oldman withdrew his abstracted gaze and turned a pair of keen friendlyeyes on Makhaya.

“You are a sociable man,” he said, smiling. “Are you a strangerhere?”

“Yes,” Makhaya said and hesitated, not knowing what to saynext.

The old man nodded his head as though he understoodeverything.

“Perhaps you are stranded?” he queried.“Yes,” Makhaya said again.“But you look and sound like a well-educated man,” he said in

surprise.Makhaya laughed. “Well-educated men often come to the

crossroads of life,” he said. “One road might lead to fame and import-ance, and another might lead to peace of mind. It’s the road of peace ofmind that I’m seeking.”

The old man kept silent but he was thinking rapidly. The youngman was very attractive, and he had a difficult daughter whom hewanted married before he died. The man’s speech and ideas also ap-pealed to him.

He said very carefully, “Most of the time we Batswana live inthe wilderness and loneliness. We are used to it but I don’t think youcan stand it. Where do you come from?”

“South Africa,” Makhaya said.The old man shook his head. “That terrible place,” he said. “The

good God don’t like it. This is God’s country.”“God’s country,” Makhaya echoed, surprised.“Didn’t you know?” the old man said with a twinkle in his eye.

“God is everywhere about here, and it’s no secret. People can’t steal a

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thing from you, not even a sixpence. People can’t fight, not even to killan enemy.”

Makhaya kept quiet, absorbing this strange philosophy.Everything about the old man pleased him, and noting this the oldman said slyly, “Why not come and stay with me for a while, son.”

“But I am almost penniless,” Makhaya said.“A poor person like me can still be hospitable,” the old man

said. “Besides, a lot is happening in my village and a well-educatedman like you can bring a little light.”

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Two

The old man was not exaggerating when he said that a lot was hap-pening in his village. Many factors had combined to make the vil-lage of Golema Mmidi a unique place. It was not a village in the

usual meaning of being composed of large tribal or family groupings.Golema Mmidi consisted of individuals who had fled there to escapethe tragedies of life. Its name too marked it out from the other villages,which were named after important chiefs or important events. GolemaMmidi acquired its name from the occupation the villagers followed,which was crop growing. It was one of the very few areas in the coun-try where people were permanently settled on the land.

Normally, in other parts of the country, whole families wouldmigrate in November to their lands on the outskirts of the villages tohelp with the ploughing and planting, returning to their villages in lateJanuary and leaving the June harvest to the women and children. Al-though people on the whole had to live off crops, they paid little atten-tion to the land. The pivot of their lives was the villages. Not so withthe people of Golema Mmidi. Necessity, even in some cases, rejectionand dispossession in previous circumstances, had forced them to makethe land the central part of their existence. Unlike the migratory villa-gers who set up crude, ramshackle buildings on the edge of their lands,they built the large, wide, neatly thatched huts of permanent resid-ence. They also had the best cultivated land and kept a constant watchon the thornbushes which sprang up in every conceivable place likeweeds. True enough, the villagers did not differ so greatly from every-one else in their way of life. The men attended to the cattle businessand helped with the ploughing, while the women were the agricultur-ists or tillers of the earth. Like everyone else, they fenced their landwith the thornbushes and supplemented their incomes with woodcarving and basketmaking. A few like Makhaya’s new-found

companion, the old man, Dinorego, were skilled in the di-phate trade– that is, the making of mats and blankets from the skins of wildanimals.

Over a period of fourteen years Golema Mmidi had acquired apopulation of four hundred people, and their permanent settlementthere gave rise to small administrative problems. Due to this, a para-mount chief named Sekoto had recognized it as a ward of his territoryand for administrator had appointed his troublesome and unpopularyounger brother, Matenge, as subchief of the village. The appointmenttook place in the sixth year of settlement, and although the residentspolitely addressed their subchief as ‘Chief’, what had made Matengeunpopular in his brother’s household – an overwhelming avaricious-ness and unpleasant personality – soon made him intensely dislikedby the villagers, who were, after all, a wayward lot of misfits. Thus, ap-peal cases from Golema Mmidi were forever appearing on the courtroll of the paramount chief – appeals against banishment, appealsagainst sentences for using threatening and insulting language to asub-chief, and appeals against appropriation of property by thesubchief. Knowing his brother well enough, the least the paramountchief could do was always to side with the appellants; and after athreat or two, the devil that drove Matenge would quickly subside,only to awaken its clamouring and howling a few months later.

One day, a strange, massively built, blue-eyed young manwalked into the paramount chief’s office. He introduced himself as Gil-bert Balfour and explained that he was but recently from England andhad visited the country three years previously on a student’s travelgrant, and that to this visit he owed his choice of career – to assist inagricultural development and improved techniques of food produc-tion. The country presented overwhelming challenges, he said, notonly because the rainfall was poor but because the majority of thepeople engaged in subsistence farming were using primitive tech-niques that ruined the land. All this had excited his interest. He hadreturned to England, taken a diploma in agriculture, and now had re-turned to Botswana to place his knowledge at the service of thecountry.

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Then, for almost an hour he eagerly outlined a number of grandschemes, foremost of which was the role co-operatives could play inimproving production and raising the standard of living. The para-mount chief listened to it all with concealed alarm, though throughoutthe interview a smile of pleasant interest was on his face. Of course, hewas widely known as a good chief, which is the way people usuallyrefer to paramount chiefs. He attended all the funerals of the poor inthe village, even accepted responsibility to bury those who were toopoor to bury themselves, and had built a school here and a reservoirthere. But because he was a chief he lived off the slave labour of thepoor. His lands were ploughed free of charge by the poor, and he waswashed, bathed, and fed by the poor, in return for which he handedout old clothes and maize rations. And to a man like this GilbertBalfour came along and spent an hour outlining plans to uplift thepoor! Most alarming of all, the Englishman had behind him the back-ing of a number of voluntary organizations who were prepared to fin-ance his schemes at no cost to the country.

At first the young man’s ideas caused the chief acute discom-fort, especially his habit of referring to the poor as though they werehis blood brothers, and the chief was a shrewd enough judge of humannature to see that the young man was in deadly earnest. But halfwaythrough the interview, a beaming smile lit up the chief’s face. Hewould put this disturbing young man in Golema Mmidi, and if hecould survive a year or more in the bedlam his brother Matenge wouldraise, that would be more than proof of his sincerity. One thing he wassure of – either the young man would be completely destroyed, or hecould completely destroy his brother, and he wanted his brother des-troyed for all the family feuds and intrigues he had instigated.Towards the end of the interview, he allocated a 250-acre plot for anexperimental farm and a 7,000-acre plot for a cattle ranch.

It was about all this that the old man talked to Makhaya ontheir hour and a half walk to the village of Golema Mmidi. The villagehad no post office, and Dinorego had come to the railway village totake out some of his savings and purchase provisions that he could notbuy in his village. When he had bought everything he needed, he put

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the provisions into a flour bag and slung it over his shoulder. The roadthey took ran parallel with the railway line, and once again it was justthe thornbush on either side and the blue sky. Makhaya noticed thatthe old man had an odd way of walking. It was a quick shuffle, a pro-pelled shuffle as though a small private windstorm was pushing himfrom behind, and his speech too had the odd propelled quality of hiswalk.

“It’s not right,” said Dinorego. “A well-educated man shouldnot be stranded in our country. But you will find that things happenslowly here. They say this is a country where people ought not to liveand it is true. Batswana people often go without food and water and sodo their cattle. Cattle are grazed where a bit of grass grows, but watermay only be found ten miles away. Life is like this: you graze cattlehere one day; the next, you take them on a long search for water. It issuch a hard life that I myself long ago gave up the cattle business. Inall my years I have known of only one man who think he can change it.His name is Gilbert. He came to our village three years ago and startedthe cattle cooperative. Also a farm to try out better way of crop grow-ing, and it is from this I mostly benefit as I only grow crops.”

Dinorego stopped abruptly, put down his bundle and spreadhis hands out to explain himself more clearly. Makhaya listened in hisabsorbed, attentive way, a faint smile on his face.

“A Batswana man thinks like this: ‘If there is a way to improvemy life, I shall do it.’ He may start by digging a well with a spade. Hedigs and digs, slowly moving the earth to one side with a spade. Whenit has become too deep, he sets up two poles in the earth with a pole ontop and a handle. To this he attaches a rope and a bucket. Then hesends his son down into the well. The son digs and digs, each timesending up the earth in the bucket. At last water is found. Now, alongcomes someone and tells the man about rainwater dams that are madewith scrapers. So the man inspans the oxen and makes a dam for wa-tering his cattle by removing the earth with a scraper. That is how heprogresses. Each time he feels he has improved himself a little, he isready to a try a new idea.

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“In my village, people have long been ready to try out newideas, but everything is delayed because of the fight that is going onbetween our chief and Gilbert. First of all the fight was about who isthe good man and who is the evil man, though everyone well knowswho the evil man is. In spite of this, many secret things were done todamage and delay the starting of the farm and cattle co-operative. Lastyear the secrets all came out into the open in the battle over Pelotona,the permit man. It is the rule that a permit must be written out forevery beast that is sold. Before Gilbert came, Pelotona used to work forthe chief because he was the big cattle speculator of the village. Acattle speculator works like this: a man brings his beast to him whichhe looks over and then says, ‘Oh, I shall pay you six pounds for thatbeast.’ But in his heart he knows he will get sixteen or twenty poundsfor the same beast at the abattoir. This is the only way that a poor manmay sell cattle because he cannot order railway trucks to transport hiscattle. On this business our chief became very rich, then along cameGilbert with a new idea: the cattle co-operative belongs to the peopleand each member is to get a fair price. To get this fair price each beastis weighed on a scale and the owner is paid the same live weight aswould be given by the abattoir. Seeing this good fortune, the whole vil-lage joined the cattle co-operative, putting our chief out of business.

“Now, Pelotona is a free man. He had a change of mind andwalked over to work for Gilbert. The next thing our chief placed a ban-ishment order on Pelotona, which made Pelotona straightaway run toour chief’s brother Sekoto, who is also his superior. The chief’s brothercame over and said, ‘You need not think because you are my relativethat you can do what you like.’ People were also much surprised to seea white woman come over from England and say in a very loud voice:‘Pelotona stays right here. We are paying his salary.’ All this commo-tion over a poor and humble man like Pelotona.”

There was a short silence. Makhaya was very moved by thevividly told little story, and there was a kind of defiance in the manGilbert that found an echo in his own heart.

“Tell me more about Gilbert,” he said quietly. “He interestsme.”

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“I have no words to describe Gilbert, son,” Dinorego said. “Justas I take you as my own son, so do I take Gilbert as my own son, whichfact surprises me, since he is a white man and we Batswanas do notknow any white people, though some have lived here for many years.Many things caused me to have a change of mind. He can eat goatmeat and sour-milk porridge, which I have not known a white man toeat before. Also, whenever there is trouble he comes to me and says,‘Dinorego, should I stay here?’ which fills my heart with fire since I amjust an old man with no power. I reasoned: If Gilbert goes, who willpour out knowledge like rain? Everybody is selfish and wants to keepwhat he has to himself. There was my friend, Mma-Millipede, who hadfifty-two fowls. They were wandering free, being eaten by the eagles. Itook her myself to Gilbert. He says, ‘If you have fifty-two fowls youmust build a coop, fifteen feet by twenty-five feet. Make it six feet high.Keep one cockerel for every fifteen hens. Never keep more than two orthree broody hens in the coop at one time. Buy egg-laying mash…’ andso on. Mma-Millipede now always has eggs for sale.”

The old man was silent awhile, then continued, “In this worldare both evil and good men. Both have to do justice to their cause. Inthis country there is a great tolerance of evil. It is because of death thatwe tolerate evil. All meet death in the end, and because of death wemake allowance for evil though we do not like it.”

“I might like it here,” Makhaya said, wistfully.“This country appeals to few people,” said Dinorego. “There is

too much loneliness. I stay alone with my youngest child. Her name isMaria. She likes all things modern. Because of this she is also takinglessons from Gilbert in English. One day she was looking at pictures ina book which Gilbert gave her. There was a kitchen with shelves. Soshe carved the shelves in the mud wall. Then, too, she cooks goat meatwith curry powder and this improves its taste. Now all the womenround about have shelves in their kitchens and cook the meat withcurry powder.”

There was an abrupt change in the scenery. The low wild thorn-bush suddenly gave way to acres and acres of cleared land, cultivatedfor ploughing. Perching on the outer borders of each plot were small

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groups of mud huts. At a railway siding, they crossed over the line andwalked along a wide path that had been scraped by a bulldozer. Thepathway wound and curved into the distance, and in the distance twolow blue hills met and swept down to each other. At a fork in the road,a few tall, slender trees lined the pathway. Dinorego took the turningto the left.

“If you follow the other road,” Dinorego said, “you will sooncome to the farm and cattle co-operative. This is our village. It is calledGolema Mmidi, which means ‘to grow crops’.”

A narrow footpath led through the trees which were planted bythe old man on a slope that led down to his home. The short walkthrough the trees made Makhaya feel that the sudden clearing aheadof ploughed land was immense. Three huts stood nearby in a wideyard hedged with thornbush.

A young woman bent over sweeping the yard with a grassbroom.

“Maria,” the old man called. “I have a guest.”Those were familiar words to the young woman. Her father

never seemed able to step out of his own village without bringing backa stranger. She straightened her back, glanced briefly at the tallstranger, and noticed immediately that he had the tired look of onewho had travelled a long distance.

Perhaps he will want some water to wash, she thought. It’s agood thing I kept the big water pot near the fire.

She dropped the broom and walked quickly to one of the cent-ral huts and came out with two hand-carved stools which she placedon the ground for the men to sit on. Dinorego introduced her toMakhaya. She bent her knees in a slight curtsy and clasped two smallhands together in the Tswana form of greeting.

“Tea will soon be ready,” she said. “Would the guest like waterto wash?”

It was the crisp clear voice of a busy, preoccupied, self-ab-sorbed woman, and there was an almighty air of neatness and orderli-ness about her. She was very thin with a long pretty neck on which waspoised a serious, quiet face, and her small black eyes never seemed to

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gaze outward, but inward. In fact, she was often in the habit of staringmeditatively at the ground. Makhaya was instantly attracted to her.

Thunderous footsteps made Makhaya swing sharply around.This made the old man laugh.

“It’s Gilbert,” he said. “He always surprises people because noone expects such a big man.”

He was not big, he was a giant, and his massive frame madehim topple forward slightly and sway as he walked. He never woremuch except short khaki pants and great hobnailed boots, and becauseof this, the sun had burned him a dark brown hue, and this in turn ac-centuated the light-blue colouring of his eyes so that they glittered.Life never seemed to offer enough work for his abundant energy, andhis gaze forever restlessly swept the horizon seeking some new chal-lenge, while at the same time his mind and hands could busy them-selves with the most immediate and insignificant details in a continu-ous flow of activity like a wave. Thus, having already includedMakhaya and Dinorego in his horizon, he walked straight into thecentral hut, said something that made Maria laugh, and came out al-most immediately with a stool and the tea tray.

“Dinorego,” he said, pleasantly. “Why didn’t you tell me youwere going into town? I could have given you a lift, as I wanted to go intoo to buy a new mantle for my lamp.”

“It’s a good thing I did not ask for a lift, Gilbert,” the old mansaid. “Today I was meant to acquire a new son. His name is Makhaya.”

Gilbert held out his hand and smiled widely, easily. “Hullo,Mack…” he stumbled as he had not really grasped the sound of it.

“It’s just a tribal name,” Makhaya said, smiling at his embar-rassment. “You can call me Mack if you like.”

The words, “It’s just a tribal name,” caused an instant pause inthe activity of the wave. To Gilbert, it was the first real hand-clasp hehad experienced in the loneliness in which he found himself in tribalAfrica. He stared at Makhaya, taking in the quiet, wryly amused ex-pression and the air of lonely self-containment.

“Are you a stranger in this country?” he asked.

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“Yes,” Makhaya said, then added, “I also ought to be passingthrough because I’m a refugee.”

“To where?” Gilbert asked.“I don’t know yet,” Makhaya said.Gilbert said nothing, yet the expression on his face went blank

the way it always did when someone aroused sympathy in him.Maria came up and said very formally to Makhaya, “Sir, the wa-

ter for your wash is ready.”Makhaya picked up his bag and followed her to one of the huts.

Gilbert turned to Dinorego and said, “He’s quite a strange fellow.”“Not only that, Gilbert,” the old man said quickly. “He has

some wonderful ideas. When I first met him he said ‘A man comes tothe crossroads. The one road leads to fame and the other to peace ofmind. Is there peace of mind for a man like me?’ And I straight awaythought: ‘This is the very man my son Gilbert has been looking for tohelp him in his work. Since he is a well-educated man perhaps theycan have some understanding.’ What do you think?”

He blinked innocently at Gilbert.Gilbert kept quiet for a moment, then said, decisively, “I’ll in-

vite him to have supper with me.”Gilbert gazed thoughtfully into the distance. The quietly

amused words, “It’s just a tribal name,” kept on recurring to him. Heneeded, more than anything, someone with the necessary mental andemotional alienation from tribalism to help him accomplish what hehad in mind. Three years of uphill battling had already made clear tohim his own limitations in putting his ideas across to people, and hehad also learned that change, if it was to take place at all, would insome way have to follow the natural course of people’s lives ratherthan impose itself in a sudden and dramatic way from on top. Hehadn’t the kind of personality that could handle people, becauseeverything in him was submerged to the work he was doing. He lackedsympathy, patience and understanding, and there were all those weirdconflicts he had had with Matenge that had kept him lying awake atnight. There seemed to be no escape from the man, but what had con-tributed more than anything else to those sleepless nights was his own

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inability to understand the workings of an extremely cunning and evilmind, a mind so profoundly clever, as to make the innocent believethey are responsible for the evil.

As soon as Makhaya emerged from the hut, Gilbert stood upand said abruptly, “Would you care to have supper with me? I’d like totalk to you.”

Gilbert led the way out of the yard, up the slope and throughthe trees. A flock of goats suddenly appeared, herded home by a smallboy. The sun had already set, and as though they knew this, the goatsflicked their tails briskly and rolled anxious yellow eyes at the two menwatching them as much as to say: “We are late, but one day we willstop and talk.” The small boy waved, walking in the same manner asthe briskly trotting goats.

As though he understood goat-talk, Gilbert laughed happily. Hesaid to Makhaya, “Botswana goats amaze me. They just walk abouteating all this dry paper and bits of rubble and then turn it into meatand milk.”

They walked on and soon came to the wide pathway whichforked with a turning to the left and one to the right: Gilbert took theturn to the right and they arrived at a big gate, roughly made of tautlystrung barbed wire. Gilbert lifted the wire latch and swung the gateopen, and then closed it again once Makhaya was inside. He raised onehand and said gaily:

“This is Utopia, Mack. I’ve the greatest dreams about it.”And all that Makhaya could see of Utopia in the dimming light

was the outline of several mud huts. Near one of these was parked aLand-Rover and to this hut Gilbert walked. He pushed open the doorand struck a match to light a lamp. The interior was simply furnishedwith a bed in one corner, a table, two chairs and some boxes on whichwere strewn, in haphazard order, books and magazines. Makhaya satdown on one of the chairs while Gilbert pumped a paraffin stove whichstood on the floor in a corner of the hut. Supper was to be a few tins ofcanned food emptied into a pot and heated briefly over the stove andthen poured out roughly on to two plates. But while he busied himself,Gilbert chatted about this and that.

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“I like it here,” he said. “I’m running away from England. Youknow what England’s like? It’s full of nice, orderly queues, and every-body lines up in these queues for a place and position in the world. Ilet all that go hang and hopped out.”

He paused and looked at Makhaya with a friendly glance.“What exactly are you running away from?”

“It’s not so much what I’m running away from,” Makhaya said.“It’s what I’m trying to run into. I want a wife and children.”

Gilbert looked half-surprised and half-amused at this unexpec-ted reply.

Makhaya laughed. “I want some part of myself to go on when Idie,” he said. “And since I found myself so near death over the pasttwo years, I thought it best to find a wife before I found anything else.”

“Are you that simple?” Gilbert asked, and laughed too.“Yes,” Makhaya said.“I don’t know if the same applies to me,” Gilbert said, suddenly

thoughtful. “Ninety per cent of the time I don’t want a woman. Thenalso there’s that ten per cent when I’m lonely, but I don’t know of anywoman who’d go for the ten per cent.”

“She would,” Makhaya said. “But provided she had a life of herown too.”

Gilbert looked at him with an almost childlike innocence. “Youseem to be quite an expert.”

Makhaya averted his face in discomfort. He could not explainthat experiences went hand in hand with a depth of bitterness and re-sentment because he did not fully understand the root cause of an at-traction that had made women pursue him; that if love was basically awarm fire in you, you attracted all the cold people who consumed yourfire with savage greed leaving you deprived and desolate. The robberyhe recognized but not the cause.

“I have sisters,” Makhaya said at last. “Also, there have beenwomen and women in my life, I suppose because I searched for them.”

They were silent for a while, eating. Then Gilbert said quietly:

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“Would you say, from what you’ve seen of her today, thatDinorego’s daughter was one of those women who had a life of herown?”

Makhaya did not reply immediately. He thought of the smallblack inward-grazing eyes and the pretty air of preoccupied self-ab-sorption. He’d have liked a woman like that. She might have so easilybecome a part of his inner harmony and peace he was striving for. Butan instinct warned him to push the dream away from him. Three yearswas a long time and he was a stranger to it all.

“Yes,” he said, slowly. “I’d say she’s that kind of woman.”Gilbert’s eyes lit up with laughter. “She’s hard to get,” he said.

“She makes all these little rules and you can’t budge her from them.When I first came here I asked her to marry me and she said, ‘I can’tmarry you, Gilbert, because I’m not an educated woman. You won’t behappy with an uneducated woman.’ So I said, ‘All right, get educatedthen.’ Now I’m sorry I ever said it because I’ve been teaching her Eng-lish in exchange for lessons in Tswana. All I’ve got out of it is an inferi-ority complex over my inability to grasp Tswana.”

This odd little confession warmed Makhaya’s heart to the man.There might have been so many things that could have stood up as abarrier between a possible friendship, like Makhaya’s background andhis distrust and dislike of white people. Instead, he found himself con-fronted by a big man who allowed himself to be bullied by a small wo-man. They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Gilbert stoodup and cleared away the plates and crouched down on one knee, pre-tending to fuss about putting them in a basin. He half-turned andlooked at Makhaya.

“I could do with a friend around here,” he said, slightly embar-rassed. “Are you looking for a job?”

“Yes,” Makhaya said.“Tell me a bit about yourself. What work were you doing in

South Africa?”“There’s not much to tell,” Makhaya said. “I worked for a news-

paper in Johannesburg. It was the only sort of thing where blackpeople could see their faces on the front page and read about their

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neighbours, but it was lurid. And since I went out on the stories Icould see that it was not so far from the truth because people who aredown in the hovels are lurid. The only thing is, it’s a law of life thatthey rise up but there are man-made laws to keep them down there.After a time it begins to drive you crazy. You either drink too much, oryou join underground sabotage movements which are riddled withspies. You keep a piece of paper in your pocket with a plan to blowsomething up, and you get thrown into jail for two years before you’veblown anything up.”

“Do you still feel committed to all this?” Gilbert asked.“Wouldn’t I have stayed there if I had?” Makhaya said, half-

questioning himself. “I don’t know. Nothing is quite clear to me.”Gilbert stood up and swung around decisively. “Can you drive a

car?” he asked.“Yes,” Makhaya said.“Driving a tractor is much easier,” he said. “Part of your job

would be to learn tractor ploughing and the use of planters, harrows,and cultivators. The other half would be to teach women agriculture.”

Makhaya stared at him in amazement. “But I know nothingabout agriculture,” he protested.

“I have the lectures,” Gilbert said, almost impatiently. “I knowwhat’s needed but I can’t teach. I can’t put my ideas over somehow,and not only because my grasp of Tswana is poor.”

He sat down on a chair and for almost an hour talked eagerly,the way he had with the paramount chief, only this time to a keenly at-tentive listener.

He felt that he had stumbled on to one of the major blockagesto agricultural progress in the country. The women were the tradition-al tillers of the earth, not the men. The women were the backbone ofagriculture while the men on the whole were cattle drovers. But whenit came to programmes for improved techniques in agriculture, soilconservation, the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and the productionof cash crops, the lecture rooms were open to men only. Why givetraining to a section of the population who may never use it but con-tinue to leave it to their wives to erode the soil by unsound agricultural

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practices? Why start talking about development and food productionwithout taking into account who is really producing the food?

At each turn he had been struck by the complexity of the struc-ture. Golema Mmidi was, for most of the year, a village of women withall the men away at the cattle posts. Dinorego was the only full-timemale crop producer in the village. All the rest were women. What Gil-bert had in mind was to bring the two, cattle production and crop pro-duction, together. The system of uncontrolled grazing far out in thebush, apart from ruining the land, was only producing low-grade beef.If cattle were brought to the crop-producing areas, they could be fedon the crop residues and grain surpluses, and this would raise thegrade of the beef. This was a serious reason for finding urgent solu-tions. The country was in the grip of a severe drought, which hadalready lasted five years and was becoming worse with each succeed-ing year.

“Well, Mack, what do you think?” he said at last.Makhaya spread out his hands, helplessly. It was a whole new,

astonishing world.“I think I’ll accept the job,” he said.“You can move in tonight,” Gilbert said.He picked up the lamp and led the way to a nearby hut which

was furnished on the same lines as his own. Then they walked to thehome of Dinorego to fetch Makhaya’s baggage. The old man’s heartwas full of joy. He thought he had indeed acquired a son in Makhaya.Once the two young men’s footsteps had retreated out of sound, heturned to his daughter and said, “Well, what do you think of thestranger, my child?”

“He’s all right,” Maria replied, with profound indifference.She stood up from her place at the fire and went to bed. The old

man sat for a long while contemplating the flames. Would he see nograndchildren? Would Maria never love a man?

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Three

Not anything in his life had prepared Makhaya for his first week inhis new employment. There was so much that excited the in-terests of Gilbert about the country, and he was anxious to im-

part three years of observation all at once to Makhaya to give him abase on which to work.

Golema Mmidi was in the eastern part of the country, in a wa-tershed area that received an average annual rainfall of eighteeninches, while vast stretches of the western regions were almost desertand received an average annual rainfall of nine inches. Thus, the east-ern watershed was also the most heavily overstocked and overgrazedand overpopulated part of the country. Because of this, much of thesofter, sweeter types of grass had long since disappeared from thearea, and great stretches of land were covered by a species known asthe carrot-seed grass. This was a tough, quick-growing little annual.Its short impoverished leaves grew close to the ground in a spread-out,star-shaped pattern from the centre of which arose a thin stalk, pro-fusely covered by close-packed little burrs. These burr grass seedsclung to the mouth parts and legs of the animals and were so transpor-ted from place to place.

The carrot-seed grass grew in profusion all over GolemaMmidi. When Gilbert first arrived and fenced in the 250-acre plot forcultivation, he had left a wide strip of land between the fence and thecultivated area. At first, on this border strip, the carrot-seed grassgrew.

Over a period of two rainy seasons, a number of interestingchanges took place on this border strip. Springing up between thecarrot-seed during the first season were the long frail, feathery stalksof the wind-blown eragrostis, a lush sweet grass. Within two years,this type of grass had gained dominion over the border strip area,crowding out the carrot-seed grass, which by then had ceased to grow.

This amazing development caused Gilbert to place the carrot-seed un-der closer observation in a rough, homemade laboratory. He notedthat carrot-seed showed a preference for impoverished soil, but oncethe burr casing had liberated the tiny seed, it rotted, forming a humuslayer in the soil. Thus, while not liking rich soil, it had the ability tobuilt up the humus layer in impoverished soil and was the tough pion-eer which paved the way for a more fragile species of grass to gain itshold on the soil again.

Other miracles too had taken place in the border strip. Theminute star faces of wild flowers peeked up amidst the now densegrass: white stars and purple stars and the lacy curving sprays of delic-ate blends of pale-pink blossoms with, here and there, the jauntyyellow-gold of strange freakish daisies with stems that were one inchwide and flat as rulers, topped by flowers with the odd shape of inver-ted whorls. A strange gourd too crept along the fence, the hard outerhusk of the fruit enclosing enormous seeds which were covered by athin film of syrup that tasted like honey.

Had all this strange new growth lain dormant for years andyears in the soil? He questioned the villagers, but only Dinorego, oneof the earliest settlers, retained a wistful memory of when the wholearea had been clothed by waist-high grass and clear little streams hadflowed all the year round. The pathways of the streams were still therebut dry and empty now.

Gilbert travelled all over the eastern watershed area and in dis-may often came upon abandoned villages that had been turned intosandy wastelands through the grazing of the cattle and the goats. Insome of these wastelands even the carrot-seed grass had completelydied out, and the only type of vegetation that held the soil together wasthe thornbush. These observations convinced him that only large-scalefencing of the land and controlled grazing would save the parts thathad not yet become completely eroded and uninhabitable to both manand animals. But it was his enthusiasm for fencing and his criticism ofthe tribal land tenure system that first brought him to a head-on clashwith the fuming Chief Matenge.

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Not fully understanding the complexity of the land tenure sys-tem, Gilbert had announced that it was a hindrance to agriculturalprogress. Matenge’s brother, the paramount chief, had broken preced-ent when he allowed Gilbert to fence the land. Fencing of tribal landwas not allowed, as ownership of the land was vested in the tribe as awhole. No man could claim that he had purchased a plot of tribal landand anyone who asked was merely allocated a portion free of chargeby a chief. This system was designed to protect the interests of thepoor and to prevent the land from falling into the hands of a few richpeople. Intent on his own schemes for reclaiming eroded soil, Gilbertwas shocked to discover that he was the centre of a violent storm.Chief Matenge, aware that he was about to lose his lucrative cattle-dealing business with the villagers, grabbed onto the fencing of thefarm and cattle ranch to convince the villagers of Gilbert’s evil inten-tions towards them. In alarm, the villagers called a meeting and sent adeputation of old men to Gilbert.

Was it true, they wanted to know, that Gilbert had in realitysecretly purchased land from the paramount chief and was using thename of co-operative to enslave the people? That was what ChiefMatenge had told them. At first Gilbert was dumbstruck by the accusa-tion. Then he realized that he had endangered his work by criticizingthe land system and creating the impression that he favoured freeholdtenure.

No, Gilbert had replied, he was not proposing an alternative tothe tribal land tenure system. He believed that co-operative organiza-tion was similar to communal ownership of land, and he felt that pro-gress could be achieved if enclosed grazing land, farm machinery,boreholes, and marketing societies were the responsibility of themembers.

Dinorego, who had acted as interpreter of the deputation, poin-ted to the fences. Why had barbed-wire fencing been set up around theland? It was something that was not allowed. They did not doubt theword of the young man, he said kindly, but all the commotion was overthe fences.

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Gilbert took them to the border strip area to show them howgood grass regained its hold on the land once the earth was protectedby a fence. All the old men could not but agree that they had not seensuch grass in Golema Mmidi for a long time. He also took them to thecattle ranch where the same miracle had occurred. The cattle ranchhad been divided into four camps. Two were to remain empty for sometime. In one of the empty camps, he wished to observe the speed withwhich the natural grasses of the area recovered. In the other he hadhad the land de-stumped and ploughed and a drought-resistant typeof grass seed sown. From this he would be able to judge whether indi-genous grasses or imported drought-resistant grasses would be bestsuited for cattle grazing.

In the two occupied camps he had retained one hundred cattlewhich he had purchased from the co-operative members. The best ofthese were to be used in a stock-breeding experiment, and these wouldthen be resold to members wishing to restock their herds. The lastcamp was also an experiment to raise the grade of the meat. The cattleof camp number four were fed on a special type of corn that producedonly stems and leaves and was grown on the farm as part of the year’scrop. Water, bonemeal, and salt licks were also provided within thefenced-off area of this camp.

Gilbert explained that without fencing he could not gather allthis valuable information. Also, it was his hope that all the cattle ofGolema Mmidi would one day graze on co-operatively owned feedinggrounds, and the fencing of these feeding grounds was most essentialfor a number of reasons. There could be no overstocking once a fencewas erected. The plan was to keep no more than two hundred cattle ata time on a ranch of seven thousand acres. If fewer beasts were kept,they could be better fed, and this would bring an increase in their cashvalue. Fencing also reduced the hardship and labour of cattle-rearing.No longer would cattle stray and get lost in the bush, and it preventedthe spread of infectious diseases like foot-and-mouth.

The old men were deeply impressed. They all were or had beencattlemen and immediately grasped the significance of what they sawand heard. The young man’s entry into their village had not gone

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unnoticed, nor had his deeds or his ability, though educated, to liveunder the same conditions as the poor. But the deputation was con-cerned about the young man’s truthfulness and sincerity, for everyonefrom the chiefs down to the colonial authorities had lived off the poorin one form or another and in the name of one thing or another, likecow tax, hut tax, manhood tax, and tax on not paying manhood tax.Gilbert gained two advantages out of this meeting with the old men ofthe village: the establishment of the co-operative movement in GolemaMmidi and the friendship of Dinorego.

Out of the two, it was difficult to say which he valued more.Without the villagers’ enthusiasm for co-operatives, his dreams wouldhave remained at a standstill. Yet without the friendship of Dinoregohe might not have survived the frustrations of three years and the con-tinual enmity of Chief Matenge.

Progress was slow. The main purpose of the 250-acre plot wasto try and prove whether, if run with modern machinery, it could wincrops under all but the most severe drought conditions. Yet he was un-der pressure to make the farm economically viable; he had establishedit on grants and donations which would not continue indefinitely. Thedistractions were immense. The drought became worse with each suc-ceeding year, and the rainfall pattern became exceedingly unpredict-able. At times a whole year’s rain might fall in one month or one day orone hour. For the past two years, few of the villagers had reaped an ad-equate amount of crops.

When he first arrived in Golema Mmidi, all the ploughing wasdone by oxen, and these were always in a weak condition by the timethe first rains fell. Almost six weeks of the rainy season had to pass bybefore the oxen, fed on the fresh green growth, were strong enough toplough. In the meanwhile, all the good rain needed by the crops mightfall in those six weeks. This created anxiety, and often a man wouldharness his plough team too soon, only to have them topple over fromweakness created by the long walks in search of the scant grazing dur-ing the dry season.

Gilbert’s solution of this predicament was a thrift and loan clubwhich enabled the villagers to hire machinery from the farm so that

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they could take immediate advantage of any rainfall. Most of the menof the village had taken their first lessons in tractor-ploughing at thefarm.

All this covered the range of his achievements so far, yet theseachievements seemed to him very unsatisfactory. Apart from growingcrops for food, crops that brought in cash had to be grown too. Thiscalled for trying out new ways of making the land produce all the cropsa man might need to support his life. His views reached out to no onebut Dinorego. Gilbert was to find that strange prejudices surroundedpeople’s eating habits and the types of crops they were prepared togrow.

He had approached the authorities to inquire as to the amountof research that was being done in the country on breeding drought-resistant strains of seed. He found out that the most intensive researchhad been done on millet. Millet was really a stranger to southernAfrica where sorghum and maize are eaten as a daily staple. Yet fifteenthousand varieties of millet had been tested in the country, and the au-thorities had finally bred a type that could produce a crop in only threeinches of rain, with a few most needed advantages. Witchweed, whichis a parasite that is germinated by and lives on the roots of maize andsorghum plants, stunting their growth, was germinated by this type ofmillet as well, yet the plant remained unaffected by it. Also, the red-billed weaver bird that lives off sorghum seed and caused heavy dam-age to crops each year, bypassed the millet because the ear produced alot of spiky hairs that irritated the throat of the bird.

“So everybody is growing millet?” Gilbert queried theauthorities.

“No,” they said. “Everybody is still growing sorghum andmaize.”

He looked at them dumbfounded. Were they deliberately sit-ting on research information? And they merely laughed at his look ofbaffled surprise.

They also shrugged. They had done their best to publicize themillet discovery, and what had happened? Countries at the end of theearth had grabbed it, but the discovery had made no impact on

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Botswana because certain minority tribes, traditionally considered in-ferior, had long had a liking for millet and had always grown it as partof the season’s crop. Therefore, other tribes who considered them-selves superior would not grow it nor eat it. These ‘inferior’ tribes livedin the wastes of the Kalahari Desert where the rainfall barely averagednine inches a year, and it was their success in growing millet undersuch conditions that had first aroused interest in millet breeding. Butthe agricultural authorities decided it wasn’t the policy of their depart-ment to interfere with the traditional prejudices of the Batswanapeople.

“But why don’t you tell people that millet is a cash crop?” Gil-bert said, hotly. “Why don’t you say, ‘If you don’t want to eat it, grow itand market it. Grow it and make this the greatest millet-producingcountry in the world because it’s the one kind of crop that’s certain todo well here.’”

They shrugged again. “Can’t people reason things out for them-selves?” they said.

He looked at them appalled. So that’s what colonial authorityamounted to? Do your bit and the job was done. He bought the milletseed and walked out. One day, these colonial authorities were so un-fortunate as to pick up a rumour that all was not well with Gilbert inthe village of Golema Mmidi. They wrote him a pally letter: “Why notcome and join us, old boy?” He sent them an unprintable reply.

It was Dinorego who confirmed the story of the authorities. Itwas true, he said. Millet was only grown and eaten by ‘inferior’ tribes.But once Gilbert grew it on the farm as a cash crop, Dinorego quicklyfollowed suit and grew it on his own land.

Drought-resistant breeds of maize and sorghum, which morepeople on Botswana were prepared to eat, were hard to find. Therewas a certain species of slightly drought-resistant sorghum, but thisspecies produced a layer of black substance just under the outer husk,and when pounded and cooked, it made the porridge look black in col-our. For this reason it was unpopular and never grown.

Year in and year out people had grown the exact same crops.Somewhere along the line they had become mixed up with tribal

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traditions. They had become fixed. They were: sorghum, maize, water-melon, and sweet reed. There was even a feeling of safety about them.Never mind if the hot sun of the drought years burned whole fields ofsorghum and maize. Never mind if the rain was no longer what it usedto be in the good old days when the rivers ran the whole year roundand the dams were always full. You just could not see beyond traditionand its safety to the amazing truth you were starving – and that toughlittle plants existed that were easy to grow and well able to stand up torigorous conditions and could provide you with food.

How could a start be made? How could people and knowledgebe brought together? Could the women of the village be given some in-struction? And why not? Women were on the land 365 days of the yearwhile the men shuttled to and fro with the cattle. Perhaps all change inthe long run would depend on the women of the country and perhapsthey too could provide a number of solutions to problems he had notyet thought of. Things could start in a small way with crops like millet,with talks, with simple lectures, and with some practical work done onthe land.

•

Gilbert had drawn up a broad rough outline of his plans for instructingwomen, and this he handed to Makhaya to study. Makhaya in turn hada mind like a sponge. It soaked up knowledge. By the end of one weekhe had fully grasped the background against which he was to work.Strange as agriculture might have been to him a week previously, hesettled down quite happily with books on soil conservation andtractor-ploughing, and catalogues of wild veld grasses. He was quiteunaware that while he sat up reading at night, Chief Matenge was los-ing a considerable amount of sleep over his presence in the village andhis employment at the farm.

Chief Matenge lived in the central part of the village in a bigcream-painted mansion. He had once been married and divorced, hiswife retaining the two children of the marriage. For many years he hadlived alone in the cream mansion until quite recently he had acquireda guest and friend in a certain politician named Joas Tsepe. The

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central part of the village was about two miles from the farm and itcontained, apart from Matenge’s mansion, one very poor GeneralDealer’s shop, which supplied the villagers with only the bare necessit-ies like sugar, tea, flour and vegetable fats, and cheap materials andshoes; one three-roomed shack, which was the village primary school;and a square brick building that was the depot for collecting and dis-tributing mail from the post office of the railway village, twenty milesaway. Mail was received and distributed once a week at this depot. Agroup of mud huts clustered about the cream-painted mansion, and inthese mud huts the servants of Matenge lived, not servants in the or-dinary sense, because they were paid no wage, but slaves he had re-ceived as part of his heritage.

The mansion, the slaves, and a huge cream Chevrolet, which heparked under a tree in the yard, were the only things that gaveMatenge a feeling of security in the village. At least this part of it wasin order. The chiefs had always lived in the mansions while the peoplehad lived in the huts. His world had always known two strict classes:royalty and commoner. Golema Mmidi was a village of commoners.No one could claim even distant relationship to royalty and dispute hisauthority, and the old men whom he had elected as advisers on villageaffairs were not so much advisers as messenger-boys who had totransmit his deeply resented orders to the villagers. True enough,there was Mma-Millipede, a commoner, who had once been marriedto the son of a chief. But she was also a rejected woman and, in hiseyes, a degraded woman. He was aware of her popularity in the villageand that people often consulted her, but after investigations he foundout that this was only because of respect for her religious views, andshe no longer troubled him. The villages were full of such cranky oldwomen with a bit of missionary education and the Tswana version ofthe Bible.

Still, he felt insecure. He should have reigned supreme over thecommoners, and yet his eight-year administration of the village haddealt one shattering blow after another to his self-esteem. It was hewho displayed the arrogance and pride that were part and parcel of thebearing of a great chief, and yet life had placed an amiable, pleasant

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nitwit of a brother in the supreme position, who was not above shak-ing hands with the commoners and talking to them as equals. It washe, Matenge, who really commanded the largest following of diehardtraditionalists, the ones who from generation to generation saw to itthat things remained as they were and whose company and advicewere anathema to his carefree, pleasure-loving elder brother, the para-mount chief. It was he, Matenge, who understood tribalism, that it wasessentially the rule of the illiterate man who, when he was in the ma-jority, feared and despised anything that was not a part of the abysmaldarkness in which he lived. (Matenge was the epitome of this darknesswith his long, gloomy, melancholy, suspicious face and his ceaselessintrigues, bitter jealousy and hatred.) All this was tribalism and a wayof life to the meek sheep who submitted to it. And all this had beenhighly praised by the colonialists as the only system that would keepthe fearful, unwieldly, incomprehensible population of ‘natives’ in itsplace.

And yet, things were changing rapidly. The colonialists werewithdrawing, and the change was not so much a part of the fashion-able political ideologies of the New Africa as the outcome of the natur-al growth of a people. Matenge could not see this. His brother theparamount chief could, and swam with the outgoing tide, enjoyinghimself the meanwhile. Matenge could not see this because it had al-ways been his policy to transfer hate from one object to another, and ifat last he found himself involved in the political ideologies of Africaand the cauldron of hatred, it was because it was the last camp that re-flected his traditional views.

At first Matenge had hated his brother because he felt the chief-taincy should be his, and this hatred drove him to overreach himselfuntil he was discovered in a plot to assassinate his brother. For this hisbrother smilingly and politely banished him to Golema Mmidi underthe guise that he was being given an administrative post. The shock ofit kept him quiet for some time, but soon he transferred his hate to thevillagers, most notably Dinorego, who had refused to sit on his advis-ory council. For this he tried to get Dinorego banished from the area,but the banishment order was immediately rescinded by his brother.

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And so it had gone on. The villagers were aware of the tug of war, butthey feared Matenge too much to take open advantage of it. Theymerely avoided him as much as possible. Then, along had come Gil-bert Balfour, who, with his brother’s backing, destroyed Matenge’slucrative cattle-speculating business overnight. The hatred, which hadby now become a mountain, was once more transferred to Gilbert. Andif the times had not really changed he might have won this last battleand got Gilbert removed from the village by the colonial authorities.

Co-operatives were not a popular cause. The cattle-speculatingmonopolies were in the hands of a few white traders, but once thepeople had voted a government into power that gave its support to co-operatives, the traders had reacted in panic and started paying inflatedprices for cattle. It all depended on how long they could hold out incompetition against the co-operatives. Some people welcomed this de-velopment. The traders had become rich at the expense of the people,and now they were paying these same people fantastic sums of moneyfor cattle. Surely that’s the best way a greedy man may dig his owngrave? In the meantime, a fierce battle raged and co-operatives wasthe dirtiest word you could use to the monopolists.

The agricultural authorities also believed they had a monopolyover the future development of the country, and they were not inclinedto favour independent initiative, nor outsiders. Development was an‘in’ business, for locals only. They were prepared to welcome Gilbert‘in’, as he was a white man, but to their extreme chagrin, they foundthat he had independent ideas about that too.

It seemed impossible to Matenge that one man could stir up somuch trouble among the important people and still remain in thecountry. And he kept the pot boiling all the time, in the hope that oneside or the other would step in and rid him of his arch enemy.

Almost a week passed before Matenge became aware ofMakhaya’s presence in the village and he got to know of it through theonly friend he had, Joas Tsepe.

Joas Tsepe was the undersecretary general of the Botswana Na-tional Liberation Party. There were four or five such liberation partieswith little or no membership among the people but many

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undersecretary generals. All these parties opposed the new govern-ment. At first, this opposition had set as its goal the liberation of theBotswana people from colonialism. But after the self-government elec-tions, it forgot about the colonialists and set itself to liberate the Bot-swana people from a government they had elected into power. The op-position maintained that the people did not know what they were do-ing. They claimed that the colonialists had rigged the elections, al-though prior to the voting the opposition had anticipated this colonialtreachery and had specially asked to be represented at the ballotcounting table. Strangely enough, in front of their very eyes, powerhad passed into the hands of the ruling party. Strangely enough too,Joas and quite a few others of his clan served six-month sentences forrigging election papers. They also spent some time blowing hot airabout the stupid Botswana people who had voted for chiefs and then,to their amazement, found that they had a government of the sons ofchiefs with an anti-chief policy. Joas’s party and the other oppositiongroups quickly reorganized themselves into pro-chief supporters, asthe chiefs had by now become the only disgruntled section of thecountry.

The opposition political parties had long been aligned to thePan-African movement. They also called themselves the vanguard ofAfrican nationalism in southern Africa. To many, Pan-Africanism is analmost sacred dream, but like all dreams it also has its nightmare side,and the little men like Joas Tsepe and their strange doings are thenightmare. If they have any power at all it is the power to plunge theAfrican continent into an era of chaos and bloody murder.

Joas Tsepe, although born in Botswana, spent a number ofyears working in South Africa. There he also acquired a number ofgrievances, which even the whole world acknowledges as being justifi-able. Having made a little reputation for himself as a speaker at polit-ical meetings, he was one day, from some mysterious source, given theorder to go back to his country to fight for the liberation of his people.This mysterious source also supplied him with money which enabledhim to remain unemployed and devote himself full-time to the liberat-ory struggle, and also to purchase a car. Every six months, he left the

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country ‘on a mission’, for which mission he was supplied with an airticket to travel to various parts of the earth.

All this VIP treatment gave Joas a swollen head. He wasalready the minister of finance in the shadow government, and thiscaused one to pause and puzzle out the motives of the financier of hismysterious source of money, since Joas was ill-equipped educationallyto handle the complicated business of government, and a course ineconomics would have been far better than the VIP trips. Was it per-haps the intention of the secret financier to reestablish the rule of theilliterate and semi-literate man in Africa? Or was Joas his tool? Was iteasier for a man like Joas to take his orders? Because Joas was a par-rot. Not only that, he was a belly-crawler and it was his agility at belly-crawling that had won him the friendship of Matenge. Since he hadcome out of jail after the self-government elections, Joas lived as thepermanent guest of Matenge. He had a co-operative to organize whichwould help Matenge to re-establish himself as the cattle-speculator ofGolema Mmidi, and he had to educate the African masses in Africansocialism.

•

It was on a Friday afternoon that Joas passed by the farm and noticedthe presence of a stranger. Devoured by curiosity, he swung into thefarm gates on the plea that he needed water for a long journey. Hetook one close look at Makhaya and almost choked with excitement.The newspaper with Makhaya’s picture on the front page was in hiscar, and his car could not seem to drive fast enough back to Matenge.

He burst in on Matenge, waving the paper. “We’ve got him thistime, Chief,” he said, dramatically.

Matenge looked bored. That was the way a superior had to be-have to an inferior. Getting no response, Joas opened the paper andheld it before Matenge.

“Gilbert is keeping a refugee at the farm,” he said.The whole weekend Matenge stewed and simmered. Gilbert

had overshot himself. If there was anything the new government dis-liked, it was a refugee, and because of this, no man in his right senses

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would harbour or employ one. Early Monday morning, Matengeclimbed into his cream Chevrolet and drove to the village of his broth-er, Paramount Chief Sekoto.

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Four

Even those who did not like chiefs had to concede that ParamountChief Sekoto was a very charming man. His charm lay not somuch in his outer appearance as in his very cheerful outlook on

life. In fact, so fond was he of the sunny side of life that he was in-clined to regard any gloomy, pessimistic person as insane and makeevery effort to avoid his company. It was his belief that a witty answerturneth away wrath and that the oil of reason should always be pouredon troubled waters.

Chief Sekoto had three great loves: fast cars, good food, andpretty girls. All the good food had made him very fat, so that he gavethe impression of waddling like a duck when he walked. And one ofthe pretty girls had caused a major disruption in his otherwise sereneand happy life. It happened like this. About two miles from his officialresidence, he had built a palatial mansion. He had sternly forbiddenhis wife to set foot in this mansion on the grounds that it was here thathe entertained important guests with whom he discussed top-secretaffairs. But it wasn’t long before the wife and the whole village knewthat this was the house where Chief Sekoto kept his concubines. Still,not a murmur of protest was raised against him, it being taken forgranted that a chief was entitled to privileges above those of ordinarymen. For many years Chief Sekoto carefully divided his attentionbetween his two homes until one day he chanced upon an exceedingbeautiful woman, lost his head, and for three months took up perman-ent residence in the mansion of the concubines. The villagers took itlightly. The scandal was huge entertainment in the humdrum round oftheir daily life. Not so for the chief’s family.

Towards the end of the third month. Chief Sekoto was forced totake a long business trip. His absence from the village gave his familythe opportunity to make short work of the troublesome concubine.The chief’s eldest son drove up to the mansion, bundled the concubine

roughly into a car, and sped with her out of the village to some un-known destination. Not only that, the foolhardy young man had an in-tense, upright character and quarrelled violently with his amiable fath-er and walked out of the house, forever. This experience was a greatshock to Chief Sekoto. He knew in his heart that he would never giveup the pretty girls, but after that he kept his hunting grounds wellaway from home.

Every weekday morning, Chief Sekoto listened to cases broughtbefore his court, while the afternoons were spent at leisure unlessthere were people who had made appointments to interview him. Thisparticular Monday morning a lively and rowdy case was in sessionwhen, out of the corner of his eye, Chief Sekoto saw his brotherMatenge drive up and park his car opposite the open clearing wherecourt was held. Nothing upset Chief Sekoto more than a visit from hisbrother, whom he had long classified as belonging to the insane part ofmankind. He determined to dally over the proceedings for as long aspossible in the hope that his brother would become bored and leave.Therefore he turned his full attention on the case at hand.

The case had been brought in from one of the outlying villages,called Bodibeng, and the cause of its rowdiness was that the whole vil-lage of Bodibeng had turned up to witness the trial. A certain old wo-man of the village, named Mma-Baloi, was charged with allegedlypractising witchcraft, and so certain were the villagers of her guilt thatthey frequently forgot themselves and burst out into loud chatter andhad to be brought to order by the president of the court with threats offines.

Evidence was that Mma-Baloi had always lived a secret andmysterious life apart from the other villagers. She was also in the habitof receiving strangers from far-off places into her home who would notstate what dealings they had with Mma-Baloi.

Now, over a certain period, a number of the children of the vil-lage had died sudden deaths, and each time a mother stood up to de-scribe these sudden deaths, the crowd roared in fury because thedeaths of the children and the evil practices of Mma-Baloi were oneand the same thing in their minds. The accused, Mma-Baloi, sat a little

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apart from the villagers in a quaking, ashen, crumpled heap; and eachtime the villagers roared, she seemed about to sink into the earth. Not-ing this, Chief Sekoto’s kindly heart was struck with pity.

Further evidence was that about a week ago a strange youngwoman had turned up in the village of Bodibeng and made straight forthe hut of Mma-Baloi, where she had died a sudden death. This hadmade Mma-Baloi run screaming from her hut, and it was only the in-tervention of the police that had saved Mma-Baloi from being torn topieces by the villagers.

Chief Sekoto was silent for some time. The insanity of mankindnever ceased to amaze him. At last he turned to the accused and saidgently, “Well, mother, what do you have to say in defence of yourself?”

“Sir, I am no witch,” said the quavering old voice. “Even thoughI am called the mother of the witches, I am no witch. Long ago I wastaught by the people who live in the bush how to cure ailments withherbs and that is my business.”

She pointed a shaking finger at a bag placed near her.“I would like to see the contents of the bag,” Chief Sekoto said

with a great show of interest. The bag was brought to him and its con-tents tipped out on the ground. They were a various assortment ofdried leaves, roots, and berries. He examined them leisurely, pickingup a few items for closer inspection. This very deliberate gesture wasmeant to puncture a hole in the confidence of the crowd, who annoyedhim. While he fiddled about he was aware of how silent and intentthey had become, following his every movement with their eyes. Thusholding the stage, he turned to the old woman and said:

“Proceed with your defence, mother.”“About the deaths of the children of which I am accused, I

know nothing, sir,” she said. “About the young woman who died in myhome last Saturday, I am also innocent. This young woman came tome on recommendation, being grievously ill. We were discussing theailment when she fell dead at my feet. Never has such a thing occurredbefore, and this caused me to lose my mind and run out of the house.”

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“This is quite understandable, mother,” Chief Sekoto said sym-pathetically. “Even I should have been grieved if some stranger wasstruck with death in my home.”

He swept the crowd with a stern glance. “Who issues the certi-ficates of death in Bodibeng?” he asked.

There was a short, bewildered silence. Then a car and a mes-senger had to be found to fetch the doctor of the Bodibeng hospital.There was a delay of two hours as the doctor was engaged in an opera-tion. Throughout this long wait the court remained in session. At onestage Chief Sekoto received an impatient note: “Dear Brother,” it said.“Please spare a few moments to discuss an urgent matter.”

Chief Sekoto replied: “Is it life or death? I am at the momentfaced with the life or death of an old woman. I cannot move.”

There was no reply. Chief Sekoto watched his brother’s expres-sion out of the corner of his eye. Foremost in the Chief’s mind was thenecessity to plan an escape route from the glowering thunderstorm.He called the president of the court and whispered, “Ring up GeorgeAppleby-Smith and tell him I’m coming to lunch.”

It was near noon when the doctor arrived. His evidence wasbrief and to the point. Yes, it was true, he said. There had been a sur-prising number of child deaths in the village of Bodibeng, and death ineach case had been due to pneumonia; and yes, he said, he had per-formed a postmortem on the body of a young woman last Saturday af-ternoon. The young woman had died of a septic womb due to havingprocured an abortion with a hooked and unsterilized instrument. Hewould say that the septic condition of the womb had been of threemonths’ duration.

All that was left now was for Chief Sekoto to pass judgment onthe case. This he did sternly, drawing himself up to his full height.

“People of Bodibeng,” he said. “It seems to me you are all suf-fering from derangement of the brain.”

He paused long enough to allow the villagers to look at eachother uneasily.

“Your children die of pneumonia,” he thundered, “and to shieldyourselves from blame you accuse a poor old woman of having

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bewitched them into death. Not only that. You falsely accuse her of amost serious crime which carries the death sentence. How long haveyou planned the death of a poor old woman, deranged people of Bod-ibeng? How long have you caused her to live in utter misery, suspi-cion, and fear? I say: Can dogs bark forever? Oh no, people of Bod-ibeng, today you will make payment for the legs of the old mother whohas fled before your barking. I say: The fault is all with you, and be-cause of this I fine each household of Bodibeng one beast. From themoney that arises out of the sale of these beasts, each household is topurchase warm clothing for the children so that they may no longerdie of pneumonia.”

He turned and looked at the old woman, changing his expres-sion to one of kindness.

“As for you, mother,” he said. “I cannot allow you to go and liveonce more among the people of Bodibeng. It is only hatred that thepeople of Bodibeng feel for you, and this has driven them out of theirminds. As hatred never dies, who knows what evil they will not plotagainst you. I have a large house, and you are welcome to the protec-tion it offers. Besides, I suffer from an ailment for which I am alwaysgiven penicillin injections at the hospital. Now I am tired of the peni-cillin injections and perhaps your good herbs may serve to cure me ofmy troubles.”

He stood up, signifying the end of the case. The people of Bod-ibeng fled in confusion from the courtyard, but the old woman sat fora long time on the ground, silent tears of gratitude dripping down intoher lap.

Chief Sekoto walked over briskly to his brother’s car, opened adoor, and heaved himself inside.

“We must make haste brother,” he said, “I have an importantappointment to keep.”

The first words his brother uttered really surprised ChiefSekoto.

“I wish to be relieved of the administration of Golema Mmidi,”said Matenge.

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Chief Sekoto furrowed his brow. This was most unexpected. Hedreaded what was coming next.

“Have you had another clash with the young man, Gilbert?” heasked lightly.

Matenge turned his deep doom-ridden eyes on his brother. “Heis now harbouring refugees at the farm.”

“Oh, is that all, brother?” Chief Sekoto asked, relieved. “I see noharm in that. The world is always full of refugees. How many has Gil-bert taken in?”

For answer, Matenge held out the paper with Makhaya’s pic-ture on the front page. Chief Sekoto studied the face carefully and felta sharp stab of jealousy. The man was too attractive, he could steal allthe women in the country. Chief Sekoto did not enjoy the thought of acompetitor so near his own hunting grounds.

“You mean there is only one refugee, brother?” he asked,anxiously.

Matenge nodded.“Well, what’s the trouble then? Why do you want to resign?”“I see,” Matenge said with heavy sarcasm. “You haven’t read

the story.”“But I haven’t the time, brother. I’m already late for the import-

ant appointment.”Matenge swung around furiously on his brother. “Either I go or

the refugee goes,” he said. “How can people feel safe with a criminaland murderer in their midst? That is what the story says; he is a crim-inal and murderer who walks around with bombs in his pocket. Whyshould Gilbert take in such a man unless it is his intention to murderme? There is no other reason why Gilbert should associate with a mur-derer. He is doing nothing at the farm.”

Chief Sekoto edged towards the door. “Brother,” he said. “Suchcriminology is outside my jurisdiction. You must report this matter tothe police. You must report this to George Appleby-Smith as he patrolsyour area. In the meantime, please avail yourself of my hospitality andhave lunch at the house. Tell the wife I am called away by an import-ant appointment.”

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Chief Sekoto swung his short dumpy legs out of the car, closedthe door and, without looking back, waddled over briskly to a smallwhite sports car. He was literally suffocating. Inside the fat, over-stuffed body was a spirit that fiercely resented intense, demanding, vi-cious people. It was as though they had the power to trap him inside adark airless tunnel when all he wanted was the casualness of the freeair and the silly chatter of a pretty, painted-up woman.

The small white car roared into life. Chief Sekoto pressed theaccelerator down to the floor and then, at a speed of over a hundredmiles an hour, streaked out of the village like a continuous blur ofwhite light. Within barely fifteen minutes he had covered twenty-eightmiles and approached the railroad crossing where Makhaya had beendropped off by the truck driver on his first day in Botswana. The chiefslowed down, drove past the railway station and into a yard whichcontained a small whitewashed house. It was the home of his friend,Inspector George Appleby-Smith, the green-eyed police officer whohad interviewed Makhaya and granted him political asylum.

George Appleby-Smith was twenty years younger than ChiefSekoto, and yet a strong bond of friendship existed between the twomen. They had known each other for five years and often went huntingfor game in the bush together. Game-hunting was George’s chief pas-sion, but he was abnormally afraid of snakes, so Chief Sekoto’s gunwas always reserved for shooting at snakes. Jokes were a favouritetopic of conversation on these excursions.

For example, George would inquire, “Tell me, Chief, what’s thedifference between a barber and a sculptor?”

A long interval of silence would ensue during which ChiefSekoto furrowed his brows vigorously. At last he’d say, “I must say Idon’t really know, George.”

“Well, it’s like this, Chief. The sculptor makes faces and bustsand the barber curls up and dyes.”

The collection of these droll jokes was George’s leisure-timehobby. He had a way of holding all the laughter of the world in hiseyes, yet he rarely smiled and rarely twitched a muscle on his face. Heliked his work and was very dedicated. Yet he summed up law and

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order and all pompous phrases in one expressive word: Bullshit. Whathe liked in all the bullshit was people. They were like a complicatedcrossword puzzle to him. They exercised his agile, inventive mindwhich had a peculiar ability to streamline the complex into a singleand clear detail. Nothing alarmed a prisoner more than to be told byGeorge that he was not speaking the truth, and it was the blunt andauthoritative manner in which he said this that always unnerved them.

Chief Sekoto never summed up for himself why it was George’scompany so delighted him, but both were casual, freedom-loving men,and they only parted company on their ideas on women and food. Ge-orge, being a bachelor, ate terrible food. It was always soup with alittle bit of cheese on the plate, while Chief Sekoto usually ate roast legof mutton for dinner. But somehow George managed to serve roast legof mutton when Chief Sekoto came to dine.

George was already seated at table when Chief Sekoto walkedinto the dining-room and said:

“I’m a little upset today, George. Have you got any beer to calmmy nerves?”

George stood up, went to the kitchen and returned with a glassand a small bottle of beer. Chief Sekoto looked anxiously at his friend.When George was silent and kept his face expressionless, it was a suresign that he had something on his mind.

“Don’t tell me I’ve run away from troubles, only to find youhave troubles too, George,” he said in despair.

George looked down at his plate to hide the laughter in his eyes.“I saw your brother heading past this way, Chief,” he said, quietly.“Did he by any chance visit you?”

Chief Sekoto was silent for some time, “I don’t really under-stand my brother,” he said, glumly. “I gave him a position that wasmeant to protect him from the wrath of his enemies. At the time hewas plotting my death many people said: ‘You should have this brotherof yours killed.’ I said: ‘No, leave the man to his Maker.’ And what pay-ment have I received from this generosity? Nothing but trouble.Golema Mmidi is now famous for trouble, and if that is not enough,

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my brother comes to me today and tells me that Gilbert is plotting hisdeath and has especially employed a dangerous refugee to help him.”

George stared reflectively at the wall, and after some time saidsoftly, “Chief, would you mind if I put your brother in jail?”

Chief Sekoto leaned forward, interested. “For how long?” heasked.

“I don’t know,” George replied, “it’s just a feeling. Some peopleare on tenterhooks about his association with Joas Tsepe. Tsepe is un-der the illusion that he will be able to establish a secret military campin the bush. He has no idea that his every movement is known. Theday he smuggles those guns over the border, he’s in for the high jump.If you like, we can delay matters until he brings your brother into thedeal and we rope him in as well.”

Chief Sekoto nodded his head vigorously. “I’ve no objection tomy brother going to jail, George,” he said. “Only it must be for a longtime. But what about the refugee? My brother wants him removed.”

“It’s not what he wants,” George said, calmly. “But what I want.What I want is for Gilbert to carry on with his work because everyoneelse is bullshitting around.”

Chief Sekoto laughed heartily, “I made a promise to Gilbert thatI would come and work on his farm if it succeeds,” he said. “Now I seethat with your help, my friend, I shall be spending my old age in hardlabour. But you must promise me something. You must spy on therefugee and tell me if he is eating up all the women.”

George looked affectionately at the old man, marvelling at hisability to take everything in life so lightly. Some other man might beranting and raving by now, after all that had happened. The chief’seldest son, with whom he had quarrelled, had brought the anti-chiefpolicy into government. It wasn’t a ruthless policy. In fact, there wasan over-all recognition of the hold custom and tradition had on thelives of the people, and in deference to this, all chiefs’ salaries hadbeen increased. A chief was still a father figure but somehow thrust toone side, the accent being on nation rather than tribe. Nonentities hadbeen raised up from the dust by the people’s vote, and it was they whonow reigned supreme on the local government councils. If George

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Appleby-Smith felt a pang of regret at the death of the old order, it wasbecause life had been simpler with the decisions and power in thehands of one man. If it was complex now it was because chiefs had hada long reign and deeply resented relegation to the status of rubberstamp. Whereas in former times a chief was the upholder of law andorder, in these days he consorted with strange fellows who were hell-bent on blowing everything up, and who glibly promised to restore tohim his lost political influence. Few chiefs appreciated the salary in-crease. Many voiced complaints about the younger generation, who nolonger bowed the knee but merely politely raised their hats. The chiefswere unable to see that people could not go on being children foreverand their humble servants. True enough, the change itself was not dra-matic. Even Chief Sekoto still kept his unpaid slaves. But George, withone foot in the past and his youthfulness in the present, was very emo-tionally involved in upholding the aims of the new, conservative gov-ernment which wanted everything to happen bit by bit. He was pre-pared to deal deathblows to any forces that planned its prematureoverthrow.

“I can promise you I’ll spy on the refugee, Chief,” he asid, withmock grimness. “Even though it will delay my own promotion by fiveyears. ‘So George has now gone soft on refugees?’ they’ll say. ‘We knewwe couldn’t trust the bugger.’”

He looked at his watch and regretfully parted company with hisamiable friend. The lunch-hour break for him was over. Chief Sekotoremained, eating and drinking at a leisurely pace. The cunning oldman was waiting for his brother to pass and return to his own village,and only then would he get into his car and streak back home.

A short while later he heard the approach of a car. He stood upand peered out of a window and saw his brother draw up outside thepolice station, get out of the car and walk to the office of GeorgeAppleby-Smith. After five minutes, his brother emerged and withoutlooking around walked straight to his car, climbed in, and drove in thedirection of Golema Mmidi. Not believing his good luck, Chief Sekotowaited until the cream Chevrolet had disappeared in the dust, andbreathing a sigh of relief, he walked out to his own car. But just then

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he saw George Appleby-Smith walk out of his office towards a greypolice Land-Rover. The chief watched George drive off after his broth-er in the direction of Golema Mmidi. Chief Sekoto closed his eyes.What would happen now? Since he could not bear to think about it, heheaved himself into the car and drove back home at an ungodly speed.

George too was a fast driver. He soon passed Matenge andwithin twenty minutes arrived in Golema Mmidi and drove up to thefarm gates. No one was in sight. Out on the farm fields, the five spe-cially hired and government-trained tractor drivers were doing thewinter ploughing. He parked the Land-Rover outside the farm gate,lifted the wire latch, and walked in the direction of a small brick build-ing which was the farm office. There he found Gilbert and Makhaya,standing at a table, absorbed in the study of a map. The map was aplan of the farm’s fields, and Gilbert was filling in the crops he inten-ded planting during the coming season.

The two men looked up at his entry. George Appleby-Smith wasapologetic. He profoundly respected Gilbert.

“I won’t take up much time,” he said. “Please fill in this form,Mr Maseko. It’s an application for residence. I have to take it backwith me.”

Makhaya took the form but he was a little surprised. It had notoccurred to him to apply for residence in Botswana. George walked upto the table and studied the map. To one plot Gilbert had allocatedTurkish tobacco.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to grow tobacco in this desert,” hesaid, amazed.

“Why not?” Gilbert said. “Golema Mmidi has the exact amountof rainfall of a certain area in southern Africa where Turkish tobacco isgrown very successfully. It’s a very good cash crop too, and if everyonein Golema Mmidi grows a bit and we market it co-operatively – why,we’ll all be rich in no time. The only problem we’re faced with is theflatness of the land. It needs a slight slope and well-drained soil. We’lleither have to create this artificially or lay down pipes.”

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George Appleby-Smith was very impressed, and after this madea great show of minding his own business by staring at a wall. Gilbertglanced at him slyly, smiled to himself and continued his work.

Makhaya completed the form and handed it to the police of-ficer, who looked at him in an odd quizzical way.

“Step outside with me for a moment, Mr Maseko,” he said.They walked for a moment in silence towards the gate, then Ge-

orge stopped abruptly.“Chief Matenge, who administers this village, wants you re-

moved from it on the grounds that you’re a refugee,” he said. “What hewants has never really mattered to me. We don’t see eye to eye. Butthis time he has a point. The government doesn’t encourage refugees.It would like you all to push off somewhere.”

Makhaya kept silent, not knowing what to say.“In fact,” George Appleby-Smith continued. “Things are so bad

that if anyone sticks his neck out for a refugee, he’s not likely to getpromoted for five years.”

“You mean you’ll stick your neck out for me?” Makhaya asked,amused.

“That’s what I’m saying, but only on the guarantee that youdon’t let me down and mess around in the politics of southern Africa.”

“You don’t have to bother,” Makhaya said, sharply annoyed.“I’m not begging anyone in this country to shove me around.”

The green eyes blazed with anger. “Don’t give me that bullshit,”George shot out. “And if you’ve got any bullshitting chip on yourshoulder, keep it to yourself.”

They stared at each other in this brief flare of anger. Makhayawas the first to regain his humour.

“Tie a man’s hands behind his back and then ask him if he’s go-ing to chop down a tree,” he said, smiling. “I wish the whole of south-ern Africa would go to hell. Only I don’t know what to do about gettingit there.”

“Smart guy,” George drawled, also smiling, “it’s not your philo-sophy of life I’m after, but a straight, practical ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Are you go-ing to leave politics alone?”

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Makhaya looked at him with a pained expression. “No, I won’t,”he said, “I may have run myself into a dead end. I may be sick ofeverything, but the day I fix myself up, I’ll do whatever I think is theright thing to do.”

George Appleby-Smith looked at him for some time. “I’ll stillstick my neck out for you,” he said, quietly.

He half-turned to go, then remembered something. “Reportyour presence in this village to Chief Matenge tomorrow morning ateight. He’s responsible for the comings and goings of people and hasto know, for the record, whether you intend staying here.”

He walked to his Land-Rover, climbed in, and drove off.Makhaya remained where he was some minutes longer. If there wasanything he liked on earth, it was human generosity. It made life seemwhole and sane to him. It kept the world from shattering into tinyfragments. Only a few, quietly spoken words: “I’ll stick my neck out foryou.”

As he entered the office, Gilbert looked up and smiled. “Whatdid that funny cop have to say?” he asked.

“Nothing much,” Makhaya said. “Except that I should reportmy presence in the village to Chief Matenge tomorrow morning.”

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Five

Chief Matenge really believed he was ‘royalty’. So deeply ingrainedwas this belief in him that he had acquired a number of personalpossessions to bolster the image. One was a high-backed kingly

chair and the other was a deep purple, tasselled and expensive dress-ing gown. In this royal purple gown, he paced up and down the porchof his mansion every morning, lost in a Napoleon-like reverie. Of late,this pacing had been often done to the accompaniment of loud chatterfrom Joas Tsepe. Loud is perhaps an understatement of Joas’s speech.He was a platform speaker who never got down from the platform. Hewas hoarse-voiced. He was always in a sweat. He gesticulated. He hadattended so many conferences that his ordinary speech was forever anunderlined address: “Mr Chairman, and fellow delegates…”

Usually, Matenge paid little attention. Joas came from a certaintribe of the Kalahari Desert who were still regarded as slaves. The chiefalso despised the literature of Joas’s political party. In this respect hereflected the attitude of his country. The tide of African nationalismhad swept down the continent and then faltered at the northern bor-ders of Botswana. During the pre-election campaign, the politicianshad had to chase after the people who kept on moving back and forthto their cattle posts and lands, seemingly unaware that destiny wasabout to catch up with them. But they couldn’t get away from the blar-ing microphones, and after a time they paused awhile, to listen. Onecrowd of politicians shouted that the people should take up arms, andembark upon the ‘Unbroken Line’ with ‘freedom’ as their grand aim.You have nothing to lose but your chains, they were told. Peoplelistened with mounting anxiety. They could well enough see that theywere important to these men.

But what did it all mean? What was this ‘Unbroken Line’ andwhere were the chains? The politicians could not perceive that theconference table terms meant little to a people who never read a

newspaper and who were completely out of touch with the latesttrends, but they pushed ahead all the same, glibly spouting the mean-ingless phrases. They invaded people’s homes on hut-to-hut cam-paigns, blindly gesticulating and shouting that they were “in the gripof the force and direction of the law of change,” as they were wont tocall this new phenomenon, African nationalism.

The other political party – the sons and relatives of chiefs – wasmore cunning. It kept its distance. It played catchy little folk songseveryone knew. It talked about cattle and crops and all the familiarBotswana problems. People were soothed, perhaps even a little disap-pointed. The latter crowd was too well known; all their faults and fail-ings and private evils were openly discussed in the villages.

Then the pamphlets started circulating, each party stating itsviews. The sons of chiefs collected the data from the experts and is-sued neat little manifestos outlining the problems of the country – wa-ter, agriculture, cattle development. The sons of slaves attacked the‘imperialists and neo-colonialists’ who were still skilfully manipulatingthe affairs of an oppressed people. But they put over their ideas verybadly, with many spelling errors:

“You will get a pseudo-independence if you do not vote for us,”the pamphlets stated. “Do not stamble. We are people in the clear whoknow the line. We will eliminate ignorant disease.”

It was one of the most pathetic of elections. The sons of chiefs,who had had all the advantages of education, pounced on the spellingerrors of the sons of slaves, who had little or no education.

“Can such men run a country?” they asked, gleefully.Thus, driven with their backs to the wall, the sons of slaves re-

sorted to low-down mud-slinging. The chiefs all had syphilis, theysaid. For such defamatory statements, many served jail sentences.Others, like Joas, were imprisoned for getting voters to sign papers onthe pretext that his party and the party of chiefs were one and thesame thing. For all this, the sons of slaves found themselves more des-pised than they had ever been before.

Matenge, being educated, soon cast aside the literature of Pan-Africanism. But Joas as a person made sense to him. His own crooked

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mind and Joas’s crooked mind tallied. Besides, Joas had a remarkableamount of inside information on Matenge’s arch enemy, Gilbert.

“I’ll tell you what the Imperialists are up to now, Chief,” he saidone day. “First they sent the missionaries. Now they send volunteerslike Gilbert. What is a volunteer? Volunteer, my eye. I have top-secretinformation about these training camps in England. Gilbert has beensent here to pave the way for the second scramble for Africa.”

This particular morning, Joas was hopping mad. He stood inone corner of the porch, gesticulating, fuming, his eyes almost dartingout of his head in self-righteous indignation. On the previous day hehad approached a registrar of co-operatives in an attempt to get hiscattle co-operatively registered.

“And do you know what Smedley said to me, Chief? He said,‘I’m afraid I can’t register your co-operative, Mr Tsepe.’ I said, ‘Andwhy not?’ And he said, ‘I’m not going to allow cooperatives to be usedfor political propaganda.’ So I said, ‘But everyone is a politician thesedays, Mr Smedley. Why discriminate against me? A certain other per-son I know got his co-operative registered in one day. Aren’t you prac-tising racialism, Mr Smedley? This matter won’t rest between you andme. I am going to report…’”

Matenge held up his hand with a sudden, imperious gesture. Inhis pacing he had noticed the approach of Makhaya, accompanied bythe old man, Dinorego. Matenge stared intently at Makhaya and madeseveral errors in his summing up. The flinching, averted face andslightly hunched-forward shoulders, he interpreted as the sign of aweak and cowardly character. And the very marked air of calmness inthe long strides, he associated with the type of man who would neverput up a battle.

Matenge slowly descended the steps. The descent was regal,kingly, spectacular. Makhaya jerked up his head in surprise. The shamof it all appealed to his sense of humour, but one look at the face ofMatenge instantly aroused his sympathy. It was the face of a torturedman, slowly being devoured by the intensity of his inner life, and thetormented hell of that inner life had scarred deep ridges across hisbrow and down his cheeks, and the icy peaks of loneliness on which

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the man lived had only experienced the storms and winters of life,never the warm dissolving sun of love. Being himself a lonely man,Makhaya instinctively sensed this. But they differed. Makhaya’s was aself-protective loneliness, and he had the sun inside him all the time.

Dinorego politely bowed his head and greeted Matenge. Hisgreeting was dismissed with a slight gesture of the head, which con-tained in it an inheritance of centuries of contempt for the ordinaryman. Matenge never once took his eyes off Makhaya, as though by thisconcentrated stare he intended to pulverize Makhaya intononexistence.

“Who are you?” he asked.“Makhaya Maseko.”Matenge bent his head slightly and a mocking smile played

around his mouth. “I hear you have begun to work with Gilbert at thefarm,” he said.

“It worries me,” he said. “Gilbert just makes arrangements withpeople but the authorities do not approve of his actions, nor the peoplehe chooses to associate with. Having a refugee at the farm is going togive it a bad name, including the whole area in which it is placed.”

“What’s wrong with a refugee?” Makhaya asked.“Oh, we hear things about them,” he said. “They get up at night

and batter people to death.”He glanced briefly at Dinorego, then continued. “I’ll tell you

something about Gilbert. He knows nothing about Botswana agricul-ture. He ought to be in England where he received his training in agri-culture. The only man who knows how to do things here is a Batswanaman. Most of the trouble here is caused by people from outside and wedon’t want you. We want you to get out. When are you going?”

Makhaya looked at the man in amazement and disbelief, al-most overwhelmed by the viciousness in his voice.

“But I’m not going away,” Makhaya said, as calmly as he could,though a sudden rush of anger made his voice quiver.

“If you don’t go away I’ll make things difficult for you here,” hesaid.

“What else can I say, except go ahead?” Makhaya said.

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Matenge smiled. “You know what a South African swine is?” hesaid. “He is a man like you. He always needs to run after his master,the white man.”

Matenge turned and ascended the steps, unaware that a mur-derously angry man stood staring up at him. There was a wild elementin Makhaya. He had seen and faced death too often to be afraid of it,and taking another man’s life meant little to him. Several timesDinorego said, “Let’s go, my son.” But Makhaya just looked at the oldman with a pained, dazed expression and his eyes glistened with tears.Dinorego misinterpreted this, and tears also rushed into his eyes.

Joas Tsepe ran lightly down the steps. “I’d like a word with you,Maseko,” he said.

Makhaya laughed harshly, sarcastically. “I don’t know who youare,” he said. “But Maseko is my father’s name and I haven’t given youpermission to use it.”

He turned abruptly and walked away. Dinorego shuffledanxiously beside him. He kept glancing at Makhaya’s face but couldnot understand his mood. It was tight and withdrawn.

“I am struck with pity for what has happened, my son,” he said.“But you must keep calm. Some people say the chief has high bloodpressure and will surely die of this ailment one day.”

Makhaya looked at the old man with a queer expression. “Thechief is not going to die of high blood pressure,” he said. “I am going tokill him.”

And he said this with all the calm assurance of a fortune-tellermaking a prediction. Dinorego went ashen with shock.

“No,” he said sharply. “You must never, never do that, my son.”“But he is concentrating on killing someone,” Makhaya said.

“And he is doing this, not with guns or blows, but through the crueltyand cunning of his mind.”

Dinorego absorbed this rapidly. It had a strange ring of truth.The series of crises and upheavals in Golema Mmidi fully justifiedMakhaya’s theory.

“Can’t you concentrate too, son,” the old man said quickly.“Can’t you concentrate and be as clever as the next man?”

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This quaint reply and the anxiety of the old man completelydashed away Makhaya’s anger. He laughed but he also felt a twinge ofremorse. Makhaya felt that anger had made him utter unduly harshwords to that other grinning, uncomfortable fellow who had run downthe steps. Perhaps he was just another of those two-penny-ha’pennypoliticians who sprang up everywhere like mushrooms in Africa thesedays.

“Who is the other man?” he asked.“His name is Joas Tsepe,” Dinorego said. “He and the chief are

acting like spies against the new government.”“Is the new government popular?”“Oh yes,” said Dinorego. “It is very popular. People can vote for

it for twenty years. Men like Joas do not speak the language of thepeople. Who can understand cheating and murder when such thingsare not the custom here? Some say the new government cannot im-prove people’s lives because the leaders come from the chiefs. But wecan wait and see, and if they are no good, one day we will chuck themout.”

They turned out of the circular clearing in the central part ofthe village and took the road that led back to the farm.

“What is the time, son?” Dinorego asked. “I want to introduceyou to my friend Mma-Millipede. She is anxious to meet you and can-not wait any longer.”

Makhaya looked at his watch. It was eight fifteen. And therewas a twenty-minute walk back to the farm. The old man shook hishead.

“I cannot trust my friend Mma-Millipede,” he said. “She willdelay us.”

But Makhaya waved this aside. On the way to Chief Matenge,the old man had told him a very moving story about Mma-Millipedeand the great tragedy in her life.

Mma-Millipede, he had said, had grown up side by side withhim in a village in the northern part of Botswana. The mother of Mma-Millipede and his mother were such great friends that they privatelyarranged a marriage for their two children at some future date.

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It so happened that while growing up Mma-Millipede becamevery interested in the Christian religion. On the surface this was notunusual. Women lived idly in the villages during the dry season whilethe men were busy the year round with the cattle. To fill in the dullround of the day, many women drifted to the church, where they werealso able to obtain a bit of mission education. But in spite of the ad-vantage they had over men educationally, few of the women developeda new personality. They remained their same old tribal selves, docileand inferior. Perhaps Mma-Millipede was one of those rare individualswith a distinct personality at birth. In any event, she was able to graspthe religion of the missionaries and use its message to adorn and en-rich her own originality of thought and expand the natural kindness ofher heart.

The family of Mma-Millipede was one of the poorest in the vil-lage. But the recognition Mma-Millipede had gained for her religiousviews soon brought her to the attention of the chiefs, in particular onenamed Ramogodi, a drunkard and dissipated boaster and the son ofthe reigning chief. It was Ramogodi’s pride that he was sexually at-tractive to women. This was true. There were few women in the villagewho had not been his bedmate at some time or other. But whenever hewaylaid Mma-Millipede, she just stared at him, seriously. Thus, Mma-Millipede unconsciously challenged the pride of a vain man, and hebecame determined to have her as his wife.

His haughty mother approached Mma-Millipede’s family. Theyrefused to offer their daughter in marriage to a chief’s son, fearing thatshe would be treated as a slave in the household. The haughty womaninterpreted this refusal as an insult to the royal house and proceededwith plans to force the marriage.

She found out about the proposed marriage of Mma-Millipedeto Dinorego and forced Dinorego’s parents to arrange another bridefor him with all speed. Thus, terrorized into submission, the family ofMma-Millipede had no choice but to allow their daughter to marryRamogodi. There was only one child from the marriage, becauseMma-Millipede and her religious ways soon bored Ramogodi. He wasoften away from home, making hay with his former sweethearts. Still,

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Mma-Millipede continued to live in his house as his wife and bring uptheir son.

After many years came trouble. The youngest brother of Ramo-godi acquired a very beautiful wife, and Ramogodi took it into his headthat he also desired the same woman. Things came to such a pass thatRamogodi’s brother committed suicide by hanging himself. He left anote saying: “I cannot stand the way my brother is carrying on withmy wife.”

This made Ramogodi the most hated man in the village, but inspite of that, he divorced Mma-Millipede and within three monthsmarried his brother’s wife. The son of Mma-Millipede had to be exiledto a far-off village because he could not be restrained from the urge tokill his father. The shock of it all almost deranged the mind of Mma-Millipede, and in an effort to help her forget the past, Dinorego andhis wife persuaded her to come and live with them in Golema Mmidi,where they had settled. A few years later Dinorego’s wife died of hearttrouble, but the long and close friendship between Dinorego andMma-Millipede continued. Mma-Millipede had become a trader of allkinds, and she also purchased the skins of wild animals, which Dinore-go made into mats and blankets.

As Dinorego and Makhaya approached the home of Mma-Milli-pede, which was not very far from the home of Dinorego, they turnedoff onto a small footpath that wound and curved its way into the bush.The sudden clearing revealed the identical pattern of mud hutsperched on the edge of the land. The yard was crowded with children.There were a lot of goats, and Makhaya got the impression of goatsand children rolling in the dust.

“The children belong to the families of Golema Mmidi,”Dinorego said, smiling. “They are supposed to be out in the bush graz-ing the goats, but here they are all playing at the home of Mma-Milli-pede. I told her she will one day become bankrupt through having tofeed all these children and goats, but she pays no attention.”

An old woman walked slowly across the yard in a forward-bending manner as though her back troubled her. She wore a very long

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dress and had a scarf tied round her head. The children set up a clam-our when they saw Dinorego, and she swerved round in her walk.

“Batho!” she said, addressing Dinorego. “But I say, you areabout early today, my friend.”

“I have brought my son about whom we spoke the whole week,”he replied.

“Batho!” she said, again.She turned and looked at Makhaya, closely. There was

something so lovely in the expression of habitual good humour andkindness in her face that it evoked a spontaneous smile in him. Oncehe got to know her well, he was to find that she often prefaced sen-tences with the word ‘Batho’, which means, ‘Oh, People’ and may beused to express either sympathy, joy, or surprise.

Whatever conclusions the old woman had come to through herinspection of Makhaya’s face, she determined to keep to herself anddiscuss them with the old man once Makhaya had left. To indicatethis, she glanced meaningfully at Dinorego from under her eyes.

In reply Dinorego said, “My son cannot stay long. He is just onhis way to work.”

“Indeed! I am ashamed of you, my friend. What about the tea?There is always time for tea. Besides, I must gather some eggs to sendto Gilbert. I was just about to feed the fowls.”

She pointed to a basket in her hand which was full of corn seed.This made Makhaya look towards the chicken house and recall thevivid words of the old man on their first day of meeting: “If you havefifty-two fowls, you must build a coop fifteen feet by twenty-five feet…”And indeed, the chicken house stretched the entire length of the yard.Three of its walls were built of a mixture of smoothed mud and bricks,while the front part was enclosed with chicken wire and had a smallgate. Poles were spaced at neat intervals round the walls, over whichwas suspended a thatched roof. There were troughs for food and waterand boxes for broody hens. Fat sleek fowls pecked in the dust.

A child emerged from one of the huts with a tea tray, and oncethey had seated themselves, Mma-Millipede wanted to know all sortsof little things about Makhaya. Do you eat well, my son? she asked. Do

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you often get ill? If you get ill, please inform me so that I may accom-pany you to hospital as you are now far away from your home and rel-atives. About all these small things she chattered in her kindly moth-erly way, and they seemed like mountains of affection to the lonelyMakhaya. He noted how the old man nodded his head contentedly inthis sun of kindness and how the goats kept frisking their short tailsand raising their forelegs high in the air, pretending to crack each oth-er’s skulls in mock battles, while the children tumbled in the dust. Hewas a little repelled at first by the generosity of the strange old woman.It was too extreme. It meant that if you loved people you had to allow acomplete invasion by them of your life, and he wasn’t built to face in-vasions of any kind. And yet, this isolation he so treasured had oftenbeen painful, because he too felt this eternal human need to share thebest and worst of life with another. Thus he looked at the old womanquestioningly. He wanted a few simple answers on how to live well andsanely. He wanted to undo the complexity of hatred and humiliationthat had dominated his life for so long. Perhaps, he thought, her lifemight provide him with a few clues.

Makhaya would have been amused at the chatter of the oldpeople once he had left.

“I say, my friend,” Mma-Millipede burst out excitedly. “Theyoung man is too handsome. Can you imagine all the trouble if he isnot of good character? I am even afraid to think of it.”

She was thinking of all the men who were away at the cattleposts and the mines and how Golema Mmidi was just a village of wo-men for the greater part of the year.

“I was thinking that the young man would make a good hus-band for my daughter,” Dinorego said. “What do you think, myfriend?”

Mma-Millipede looked at her friend for some time. She had alot of reservations about Maria. Even her shrewd eye had not suc-ceeded in penetrating the barrier of aloofness and hostility that were anatural part of the young girl’s personality. But she had long suspectedthat there was more than met the eye in the friendship between Mariaand Gilbert. It had been of such a long duration that almost everyone

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had come to take it for granted, in particular her good friend. The onlything that prevented Mma-Millipede from voicing her suspicions toher friend was the fact that, to her, Gilbert was a foreign man, and for-eign men were a fearful unpredictable quantity in an otherwise pre-dictable world.

“I shall have a talk with the child, my friend,” she said at last. “Ishall try to find out for you what is on her mind.”

Back at the mansion, Matenge was reviewing the short inter-view he had had with Makhaya. He was reviewing it intensely, in aone-track way.

“So the refugee says he’s not leaving,” and he said this over andover, staring sightlessly at the grinning Joas Tsepe. Tsepe, too, wasstill smarting under the rough snub given him by Makhaya. Joas wasnot the kind of man who could stop and examine himself. He couldnot see how unpleasant his too familiar manner was to other people,and he would never know that the inferiority complex, which was thedriving force of his life, was also a dangerous little bully.

“I can sum up a man like that from a mile, Chief,” he said. “He’sa traitor to the African cause.”

Eventually, Matenge’s one-track sentence drove him to his carand to the office of Inspector George Appleby-Smith.

“The refugee says he’s not going,” he said, looking down intothe expressionless face of the police officer. “I have made an ultimat-um. I want him removed because he is a dangerous criminal who is us-ing the farm as his hideaway. No one is safe in my village. I don’t seehow the authorities can allow him to remain there.”

“I quite get your point, Chief Matenge,” the officer said. “Theonly thing is that the matter is no longer in my hands. It is now the re-sponsibility of the chief immigation officer, Major Ross. He has prom-ised me he will make a decision concerning Mr Maseko in one week’stime.”

After Matenge had walked out, George Appleby-Smith re-mained staring at the wall ahead of him for a long time. He had not sovery long ago been on the phone with Major Ross, had ‘stuck his neckout’, as he said he would, and been assured that Makhaya would be

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granted a resident permit in one week. His assistant-in-command ofthe station entered and had to click his heels several times before hegained the attention of his superior. George Appleby-Smith looked athim with laughter-filled eyes.

“Sergeant Molefe,” he said. “Tell me why I hate people?”The sergeant remained stiffly at attention. He was used to the

oddities of George Appleby-Smith. “I think you only hate people whenyou have a headache, sir,” he said.

Once the week was up, Matenge took it upon himself to drivethe three hundred miles down to immigration headquarters, perhapshoping to influence the decision concerning Makhaya’s removal. Heknew everything was on his side. Political refugees were never allowedpermanent residence in Botswana, and it did not take too many com-plaints to engineer their removal.

But the major hummed and hawed a bit and made a show oflooking through a file, then dropped a bombshell.

“Makhaya Maseko,” he said. “Ah…let me see. Here it is. Wefound out that he qualified for residence and granted him a residencepermit yesterday. It is already on its way to him.”

That inner howling devil once more retreated. Matenge walkedout crumpled, and each time he faced a defeat his eyes would get a pe-culiar hollow look in them and he would quicken his pace in walking.Particularly someone in a superior position to him could make himcrumple this way. On this occasion, the shock was accompanied byfear. He felt his position threatened, and he felt that the threat to hisposition was his association with Joas Tsepe. He felt that the grantingof the resident permit to a refugee was to spite him for his associationwith Joas. He determined to rid himself of the company of Joas Tsepe.Fortunately for Joas Tsepe, his political party just at this time sent himaway for six months on an important ‘mission’.

“In the meanwhile, shortly after his failure to banish Makhaya,Matenge was struck down with a severe attack of high blood pressure.He was in hospital for one month, and during this one month a num-ber of rapid changes took place in Golema Mmidi and at the farm.”

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Six

One might go so far as to say that it is strong, dominating person-alities who might play a decisive role when things are changing.Somehow they always manage to speak with the voice of author-

ity, and their innate strength of character drives them to take the leadin almost any situation. Allied to all this is their boundless optimismand faith in their fellow men. One such personality in the village ofGolema Mmidi was Dinorego, and it was his support of and belief inGilbert that swayed the villagers over to a support of the cattle co-op-erative. Another such personality was Paulina Sebeso, who was tobring the women of the village to the farm and help open up the wayfor new agricultural developments in Golema Mmidi.

Paulina Sebeso was quite a newcomer to the village, havinglived there for not more than a year and a half by the time Makhayaarrived. She came from the northern part of Botswana, which fact im-mediately ensured her the friendship of Dinorego and Mma-Millipede.Northerners really pride themselves on being inexplicable to the restof the country. They speak Tswana at a faster, almost unintelligiblepace and have added so much variety to the Tswana language as toseem to an outsider to be speaking a completely foreign tongue. Thus,when northerners greet each other they say: Good-day, branch-of-my-tree; while everyone else simply says: Good-day, friend.

The implication in the greeting, branch-of-my-tree, was arather true one for northerners. At one time they had been the mostclosely knit of all the tribal groupings, each one claiming at least a dis-tant relationship to even the most insignificant member of the clan.But, once the family structure began breaking down under the migrat-ory labour system, it was they who most readily practised intermar-riage with foreigners.

Unfortunately for Paulina Sebeso, she married, at the age ofeighteen, a foreign man from Rhodesia whose tribal tradition it was to

commit suicide when his honour was at stake. It wasn’t a remarkablemarriage and her husband wasn’t a remarkable man, being rather of amild, passive, stay-at-home temperament. He worked as a bookkeeperfor a certain large company, for which he received a wage of thirtypounds a month. By careful saving he managed to build a two-roombrick house for his family, and also every year added a heifer or two totheir stock of cattle. He had worked for the company for sixteen yearswhen a new manager was appointed. Before long the new managerclaimed that two thousand pounds had been embezzled. He also pro-duced evidence that a number of receipt books were missing. The onlypeople who handled both the money and the books were Paulina’shusband and the manager. There was a doubt. On the one hand, thecompany believed the claim of Paulina’s husband that he was innocentof the crime. He had worked for them for a long time, was known to beof sober habits and the sum stolen was too large an amount to havebeen stolen by an African man. Petty pilferings had occurred here andthere but never vast sums. On the other hand, the receipt books hadbeen removed in such a skilful manner as to suggest that the embezz-ling had taken place over a number of years.

In the end the company charged both Paulina’s husband thenew manager with the theft. On the day he was notified of this,Paulina’s husband awoke in the night and hung himself from a tree inthe yard. He left a note, once again claiming innocence. The company,being anxious to regain its money, dropped the court case and imme-diately seized the property of the dead man, claiming that the suicidewas in fact an admission of guilt. Thus, being dispossessed of a homealmost overnight, Paulina moved, with a son aged ten and a daughteraged eight, to the village of Golema Mmidi. The son, named Isaac,lived at a cattle post twenty-five miles away, herding his mother’scattle while Paulina and the small girl remained in the village to growcrops. The eight-year-old girl, named Lorato, was thus able for most ofthe year to attend the village primary school, while the boy, Isaac, wastied to the cattle post and received no education at all.

Perhaps Paulina was not a very beautiful woman. She was tall,thin and angular, with a thin, angular face. She was also flat-chested

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and like all flat-chested women, this was a sore point with her. It washard to find a suitable stuffed-up breast bodice in a country like Bot-swana, especially if you live in the bush, so she was in the habit ofstuffing hers with carefully crumpled bits of paper. But she had lovelybig black eyes that stared at everything in a bold way, and her longstraight black legs were the most beautiful legs in the village. She hada decisive way of walking as though she always knew where she wasgoing and what she wanted. She was fond of gaudy-hued skirts withstrong colours like orange and yellow and red, and the bigger andbrighter the splashes of colour, the more she liked them.

Since she was not by temperament given to brooding on thepast, she soon recovered from the tragedy in her life and set out tobuild up a new life in Golema Mmidi. Part of her plans also included aman, as she was a passionate and impetuous woman with a warmheart. It never really mattered what kind of man he was or the mag-nitude of his faults and failings. It was just enough that her feelings bearoused and everything would be swallowed up in a blinding sun ofdevotion and loyalty. Of course, if she were to find a man who acci-dentally managed to gain the respect of the whole world at the sametime, then this loved one could magically become ten thousand blazingsuns.

She had her land and home not far from the farm gates. There,directly in the path of the setting sun, Makhaya was in the habit ofcoming to watch the sunset. Just as at dawn, the sun crept along theground in gold shafts; so at sundown it retreated quietly as though itwere folding into itself the long brilliant fingers of light. As he watchedit all in fascination, the pitch black shadows of night seemed to sweepacross the land like an engulfing wave. One minute the sun was there,and the next minute it had dropped down behind the flat horizon,plunging everything into darkness. On intensely cold nights, it threwup a translucent yellow afterglow, full of sparkling crystals, but other-wise it puffed itself out into a thin strip of red light on the horizon. Ashis eyes became more and more accustomed to the peculiar beauty ofBotswana sunsets, he also noticed that the dull green thornbush and

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the dull brown earth were transformed into autumn shades of warmbrown, red, and yellow hues by the setting sun.

One evening Makhaya walked right into a great drama. Thethornbush was seeding and it did this in a vigorous way. One spray ofseed struck him on the cheek, and on a closer inspection, he noticedthat all the branches were profusely covered with beanlike pods. Thesepods twined tightly inward until they were coiled springs. Once thepod burst, the spring ejected the seeds high into the air. He stretchedout his hand, broke off a pod and pressed it open. A few minutekidney-bean-shaped seeds slithered on to his palm. He stared at themin amazement. Could this rough, tough little thornbush be a relative ofthe garden bean? He decided to take the seeds back to the farm andquestion Gilbert.

Paulina, meanwhile, had watched these comings and goings atsundown with avid curiosity and at last, being unable to contain it, hadsent the little girl to Makhaya with a message. This particular eveningMakhaya stood just a stone’s throw away from her yard, and being ab-sorbed as he was in the popping, spraying drama around him, he didnot at first notice the child standing near him. And even when he did,he looked down rather absent-mindedly into a pair of small beadyblack eyes.

“Sir,” the child said. “My mother says she sends you hergreetings.”

“Who is your mother?” he asked.The child pointed in the direction of the huts. Makhaya glanced

up briefly, was struck in the eye by a vivid sunset skirt of bright orangeand yellow flowers and momentarily captivated by a pair of large boldblack eyes. He looked down at the child and sent back a cruel message.

“Go and tell your mother I don’t know her,” he said.He turned and, without looking either left or right, walked back

to the farm. Paulina, on receiving his message, flamed with confusionand humiliation. So distressed was she that she rushed over to herfriend Mma-Millipede.

“Mama,” she said. “I’ve made a terrible blunder.”

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And, half-hiding her face in her hands, she explained herblunder.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, my child,” Mma-Millipede said,calmly. “It’s just that Makhaya is a foreignman and not accustomed toour ways. The women of his country might have an entirely differentapproach when they wish to arouse the interest of a man.”

Paulina sat in thoughtful silence for a while. As far as she wasconcerned, there was only one woman equal to her in the wholevillage.

“Perhaps he is attracted to Maria,” she said, and it nearly killedher to utter these words.

Mma-Millipede hesitated. The old man, Dinorego, had re-marked that very day that Maria no longer attended her English les-sons. These used to take place at just about sunset and last for an houreach evening. But now, for the last three days, Maria had sat at homeby the fire instead of going to the farm as she usually did. Mma-Milli-pede was hesitant to impart this information to Paulina, as already shelooked the picture of despair.

“Look here, my child,” she said, firmly. “The man is a new-comer and you can’t go jumping to conclusions. Besides, I suspect thatMaria has long been in love with Gilbert, only you are not to spreadthis about.”

These words prevented Paulina from giving way completely todespair. She even gossiped quite gaily with Mma-Millipede about tri-fling matters, then a short while later arose and left for her own home.But Paulina’s revelations of her interest in Makhaya caused Mma-Mil-lipede a few hours of anxious thought. Mma-Millipede was of the oldschool, among whom, to a certain extent, foreigners were still taboo.Also, her experience of men had been a very limited and disastrousone. Most of all she feared that another tragedy would be too much forher impetuous young friend.

“I hope Makhaya is a good man,” she said over and over toherself.

Just at this time, Makhaya was trying to avoid a situation at thefarm that both exasperated and amused him. To Gilbert, agriculture

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was a vast, rambling, intricate subject. The slope of the land and eventhe stones that lay on that land would spark off a thousand specula-tions in his mind, and there were so few good listeners in the worldthat Makhaya found himself trapped and almost forced to listen tolong discussions on the marvels and wonders of the earth. Not thatMakhaya minded. It was a welcome change to be hearing about thesethings. There was much more than South Africa that he was runningaway from, and it included everything that he felt was keeping the con-tinent of Africa at a standstill. On the one hand, you felt yourself thepersecuted man, and on the other, you so easily fell prey to all thehate-making political ideologies, which seemed to him to be the orderof the day. Yet these hate-making ideologies in turn gave rise to awhole new set of retrogressive ideas and retrogressive pride, and itwas almost a mania to think that the whole world was against you.And how many pompous, bombastic fools had not jumped on thisbandwagon? Yet the very real misery was still there. No matter whatkind of fool you made of yourself, people in southern Africa were stilloppressed.

At some stage, and in an effort to solve his own dilemma, hedecided to strike out on his own. He saw this mass of suffering man-kind of which he was a part, but he also saw himself as a separateparticle, too, and as time went on he began to stress his own separate-ness, taking this as a guide that would lead him to clarity of thought inall the confusion. It was rare. It was an uphill task in a part of theworld where everyone tended to cling to his or her precious prejudiceand tradition, and the act of letting go of it all greatly increased aman’s foes. You find yourself throwing blows but weeping at the sametime, because of all the people who sit and wail in the darkness, andbecause of all the fat smug persecutors to whom this wailing is likesweet music, and some inner voice keeps on telling you that your wayis right for you, that the process of rising up from the darkness is anintensely personal and private one, and that if you can find a societythat leaves the individual to develop freely you ought to choose thatsociety as your home. Makhaya had made the first move along thisroad but at the same time he was often stricken with guilt. If Joas

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Tsepe had called him to his face, ‘a traitor to the African cause’, hewould have agreed in his heart because he threw most of his blows atAfrica and had done so for a long time. Thus when Makhaya met Gil-bert, he was almost a drowning man, and this world of facts and sci-entific speculation seemed so much easier to handle. ThereforeMakhaya turned to agriculture for his salvation, and also to Gilbert.And he did this in guilt and fear of his intuitions because they seemedto him to lack any practical solutions as to why so many people couldbe persecuted by so few and why so many starved while a few hadmore than they could eat.

Gilbert was a complete contrast to this wavering, ambiguousworld in which Makhaya lived. He was first and foremost a practical,down-to-earth kind of man, intent only on being of useful service tohis fellow men. There was nothing fanciful in him, yet the workings ofhis mind often confused and fascinated Makhaya. It was like one gi-gantic storage house of facts and figures and plans and intuitive judg-ments and impressions. The wheels kept on turning at such a fast pacethat Makhaya never ceased to be amazed at the way Gilbert alwaysspoke in a calm, almost soft tone, while the loud humming of thesewheels was almost audible. Gilbert’s mind was also like a stop watch.He could abruptly break off a conversation and, ten hours later, pick itup at the exact same point where he had left off. Gilbert prided himselfon being an unusually well-informed man. No doubt the sun did too.No doubt the sun knew why the clouds formed and why the wind blewand why the lizards basked in its warmth, and all this immense know-ledge made the sun gay and bright, full of trust and affection for man-kind. But there were shut-away worlds where the sunlight never pen-etrated, haunted worlds, full of mistrust and hate, and it was aboutthis side of life that Makhaya was particularly well informed. Thissharp contrast in outlook called for a compromise, and Makhaya de-bated awhile and then gave way. Although manly and independent-minded enough, he found it necessary to say ‘yes’ or merely listen onfar too many occasions, and he consoled himself with the thought thathe had a lot to learn. In any case, Gilbert’s company and friendship

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disturbed him far less than most people’s did, although Gilbert’s viewson African and world politics were extremely naive and childlike.

Since poverty was so much a part of his work, Gilbert was fondof expounding on what the British Socialists and the trade unionmovement had done to alleviate the atrocious living and working con-ditions of the poor. He several times mentioned his uneasy suspicionsof the new Botswana government with its debates on democracy and atax system that too eagerly encouraged private enterprise.

“Where is all this talk of democracy going to get us, Mack?” hesaid one day, glumly. “Only a reasonably developed country can affordthe time to debate these pros and cons. What we need here is a dictat-orship that will feed, clothe and educate a people. I could work wellwith a dictatorship, which says, Look here, Gilbert, fill in this povertyprogramme.”

He looked at Makhaya, half laughing, half in deep earnest.Makhaya returned an almost hostile look. Not any politics in the worldmeant anything to him as a stateless person, and every political dis-cussion was a mockery, he felt, of his own helplessness. Since he keptso silent, it forced Gilbert to add, apologetically:

“I’m not saying that the dictator should stay there, forever,Mack. He must eventually give way to the democracy. But in my opin-ion a dictatorship is the best method for governing a country like this.What do you think?”

Makhaya nearly loughed out loud. Gilbert’s statements were anexplanation of his own personality. He was a man only impressed byresults, and he had been unable to produce these in Botswana the wayagricultural experts had produced them in Russia and China. Makhayawanted to put forward the idea that certain types of socialism mightnot be suited to African development. Africa had a small population,and it might well be that socialism of every kind was an expedient tosolve unwieldly population problems. But his mind swerved awayfrom even this. If a man talked about governments and political sys-tems, he’d soon want to be a part of the whole rotten crew. He pre-ferred to live in the bush.

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“Why not leave this country, even Africa, to trial and error?” hesaid slowly, uncomfortably. “This is only my opinion. I don’t think Iapprove of dictatorships in any form, whether for the good of mankindor not. Even if it is painstakingly slow, I prefer a democracy for Africa,come what may.”

Whether this was a satisfactory remark or not, Gilbert never re-ferred to politics again. Makhaya did not care because, more than any-thing, he hated politics. Perhaps people could be fed after all, and onceit came to the time when a man had to die, he might be more proud tocount up the number of his fellow men he had helped to live, ratherthan the number he had bombed into oblivion.

It was this private anxiety to put his life to a useful purpose thatmade Makhaya an amenable listener to the long agricultural discus-sions, and since Gilbert had at last found a potential convert to hisfaith, he often pressed Makhaya into having supper with him. Thefood was quite often cooked by Maria, who had always been Gilbert’scompanion at this hour because of the Tswana and English lessons.On the two occasions Makhaya had been present, he had not failed tonotice, with his sensitivity to atmosphere, that his presence was deeplyresented by Maria, worse still since Gilbert absent-mindedly talked ag-riculture, overlooking her, whereas at this time the hour was usuallyspent in loud chatter, arguments and laughter. Makhaya could quiteclearly hear these friendly exchanges as his hut was very near that ofGilbert’s. They pleased and surprised him, and he came to the conclu-sion that the aloof Maria had put a great deal of effort into the friend-ship. To no one else did she condescend to laugh and talk in such agay, free manner. He understood her temperament, it being very muchlike his own, and he immediately interpreted the hostility as an inabil-ity to admit a stranger into a close relationship. It was this that madeMakhaya take walks out into the sunset. But there was also a widestreak of unselfishness in Maria, and she in turn made an elaborategesture of staying away. It only confused matters and exasperatedMakhaya because, for almost three nights after that, Gilbert keptbreaking off in the middle of a conversation to say:

“I wonder why Maria isn’t coming around any more?”

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And then he’d stare at Makhaya as though Makhaya hadsomething to do with it.

On the evening that Makhaya brought back the thornbushseeds, everything came to a head. Makhaya found Gilbert and Pelo-tona, the permit man, seated around a log fire near Gilbert’s hut. Hejoined them, and for a time the discussion was about salt licks, bone-meal, and fodder which were needed at the cattle ranch. Pelotona livedin a hut on the ranch, and for a year had managed both the ranch andcattle co-operative, being assisted by Gilbert only on cattle truckingdays. After a while, Pelotona stood up and left for his home on theranch.

Noting that Gilbert’s mood was silent, reserved and aloof,Makhaya referred to the seeds which he still held in his hand. Gilberttook them and immediately brightened.

“You know,” he said. “I noticed the very same thing. I looked itup and found out that the thornbush is an acacia, a branch of thelegumes, which includes peas and beans…”

And he had that expression on his face when he was about tolaunch out into the miracles and wonders of nature, but suddenly hebroke off and slipped back into a mood of intense, reserved silence. Hestared at Makhaya for a while and then said:

“I hope you don’t love Maria, too.”So that’s what it all came to, Makhaya thought, and smiled.

And he just sat there in the shadowy light of the fire and maintained adeliberate silence. It was all none of his business, and he was experi-enced enough to know that people who reach a deadlock in their emo-tional relationships often blame this on others. Gilbert simply misin-terpreted this silence and stood up abruptly and walked into his hut.Makhaya did the same, with the only exception that Makhaya was atpeace in his mind and hugely enjoying himself. He lit a lamp andpicked up a book and then lay full length down on the bed to read. Gil-bert paced about in his hut for a bit. He was disturbed and unaccount-ably angry with someone, but his mind refused to acknowledge who itwas. After a time he put on a thick blue jersey and walked down to thehome of Dinorego.

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He found the old man and Maria seated near an outdoor fire.They both looked up at his approach and then maintained an alarmedsilence, as they could both see that something was wrong. It wasn’t thesame Gilbert with that rushing expression of joy on his face, and hewalked slowly with his arms folded across his chest. He deliberately ig-nored Maria and greeted the old man in a quiet voice.

Maria stood up and said in a slightly trembling voice, “Wouldyou like some tea, Gilbert?”

He did not reply but she rushed away into one of the hutsmerely to get away from this nervous atmosphere and then stoodthere, trembling from head to foot, unable to reach out for a cup andsaucer.

The old man looked at Gilbert solicitously. Whatever waswrong, he was not prepared to go into a panic until he had heard theworst. Dinorego had great faith in his own reasoning ability. It was al-ways there, at the forefront, like a cool waterfall on his thoughts. Gil-bert sat down and continued his intense staring into the fire. Eventu-ally the old man said, “What’s the trouble, son?”

Gilbert raised his head and looked at the old man. “I’m going tomarry your daughter,” he said, quietly.

For once, Dinorego was completely deprived of his speech. Notonly that, his ready wit and sound moralizing on every event alsodeserted him.

“Do you have any objections?” Gilbert persisted, since the oldman just stared at him.

“I am trying to put my thoughts together, son,” Dinorego saidat last. He had expected to hear a forecast about the drought, or thatall the farm machinery had broken down, and just right now all thatfamiliar side of Gilbert had been replaced by a man he hardly knew.He looked for a crutch and called out to his daughter. She appearedlike a swift shadow and stood just outside the circle of light.

“Do you hear what Gilbert says,” he said. “Gilbert says he is go-ing to marry you. Are you agreeable?”

“Yes, Papa,” she said.The world righted itself a bit.

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“And when do you intend this marriage to take place, my son?”the old man asked, kindly.

“Tomorrow,” Gilbert said.Dinorego raised his hands in the air, as though saying that the

whole business was a bit too much for him.“As you can see, I am very pleased, my son,” he said. “Only…”

and he turned to Maria. “My child, you must go to Mma-Millipede atonce. She will know what to do about the marriage which is to takeplace tomorrow.”

Gilbert stood up and accompanied Maria for a short whilealong the dark footpath. From where he sat, the old man heard shoutsof laughter and arguments, and he sat there smiling to himself, con-templating the mystery of youth. He had never seen any other mansurvive so much frustration, difficulties and trouble as Gilbert had,and here he was preparing to rush into more. And Gilbert, once Mariahad left him, stood at the crossroads near the farm and looked up atthe stars and laughed. If the old man really knew, Gilbert’s life wassimple and uncomplicated. Life to him meant love and work. It meantgetting out of the rut and the habitual way of doing things. It was likeall the rivers and sunsets and the fish in the rivers and the trees andpathways and sun and wind. But most of all it was work. Because, lackof work meant death. And while he thought of all these things, Gil-bert’s mind was once more recalled to the workaday world. Thosetrees – he had forgotten to enlighten Makhaya on the full meaning ofthe life of the thorn scrub. He turned and swung his way back to thefarm.

The lamp still burned in Makhaya’s hut and Gilbert knockedand, without waiting for a reply, pushed the door open and walked in.Makhaya balanced the book on his chest, glanced up briefly and no-ticed the excitement that shone in his friend’s eyes. This friendgrabbed a chair, sat down and took up the conversation at the pointwhere it had been abruptly broken off.

“The thornbush is most definitely an acacia, Mack,” he said.“Now, the twining around of the seed-pod is a device for ejecting theseeds when they are ripe, so that they will be flung away from the

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parent plant. This also explains why the thornbush is able to encroachso rapidly on cultivated land. It’s the toughest little plant I know, butthe goats are browsing it to death. Did you know that goats are naturalbrowsers?”

“No,” said Makhaya, smiling inwardly.“Goats prefer shrubs to grass, however lush and sweet,” he said.

“But they will eat grass when it is in seed. Much of northern Africa isdesert today because the goats destroyed the thornbush. I’ve nothingagainst the goats, you know. Without their meat and milk we’d allstarve in Golema Mmidi, but we’ll have to do something about con-trolling their eating habits, one of these days.”

Gilbert sat for a moment in deep thought, no doubt trying to in-vent new eating habits for the goats, but there was too much he had tokeep a tab on tonight. His own emotional life kept intruding into hisscientific speculations, and he suspected himself of having committedsome grievous crime. It was unthinkable that he had precipitated him-self into marriage through jealousy of Makhaya, and he was trying towork around this thought before springing the surprise.

“You know,” he said, in a burst of generosity. “I’d meant to tellyou this some time ago, Mack. You’re Kipling’s ‘Thousandth Man’. Doyou know the poem?”

“No,” Makhaya said again, and it was an effort for him to con-trol his laughter. He felt he knew what was coming next.

“Somehow I knew this the day you stepped into GolemaMmidi,” Gilbert said. “And it’s just today that everything’s clear tome…” He quoted a few lines from the poem:

“One man in a thousand,” Solomon said,“Will stick more close than a brother:And it’s worth while seeking him half your days,If you find him before the other…”

But Makhaya had a few reservations about Mr Kipling’s sweepingstatements. It was just chance that had brought him to Golema Mmidi,and it was only chance and luck that operated in his destiny.

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“I suppose you mean by that that you’re no longer mad at me,”he observed, dryly. “You nearly bit my head off not so long ago.”

“It’s not you I was mad at, Mack,” Gilbert said. “It was Maria.You’ve no idea how she’s made me run in circles for three years. Nowit’s all ended so easily, I can’t believe it myself. I don’t know why I nev-er thought of going to Dinorego in the first place. You know what hesaid: ‘Do you hear, Maria? Gilbert says he’s going to marry you. Doyou agree?’ And all she said was, ‘Yes, Papa.’ Just that, after saying athousand different things to me. So, I thought she’d change her mindand I said we’d get married tomorrow.”

By this time, Maria had already reached the home of Mma-Mil-lipede. She found her alone, reading the Tswana version of the Bible.

She was a little apprehensive as the door was pushed open andMaria stepped in, especially as a visit from Maria was rare, and thenthe child just stood there, a little breathless, flustered and tongue-tied.

“Batho! What’s the matter, my child?” she asked anxiously.“Papa sent me to tell you I am to marry Gilbert tomorrow.”“But why the haste?” said Mma-Millipede, quite taken aback.Maria sat down. “There’s no haste, Mama,” she said, in her

earnest way. “It’s I who have delayed matters. Gilbert has asked me tomarry him for three years.”

“Does Papa agree?” the old woman asked.Maria nodded and Mma-Millipede smiled inwardly, pleased

that all her conjectures were at last confirmed. But curiosity overcameher and she said, “Three years is a long time to delay a marriage, mychild. Gilbert might have become impatient and run away to England;then not only would you have lost him, but we too.”

Maria stared at the old woman with small withdrawn eyes andshook her head a little helplessly. How could Mma-Millipede expect tounderstand all the complications of life? She placed one small straighthand on the table, a way she had of showing that sentiment should al-ways be separated from facts.

“Gilbert is a man with many strange ways,” she said crisply. “Aperson has to get used to these strange ways. For some time now hehas kept a lizard in the house whom he treats as a person and which is

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now accustomed to being spoken to like a person. Its name is Skin.Each night it is put down beside the lamp to have a meal off the insectsthat gather there. Also, I have often seen it asleep on the pillow, like achild, with its legs spread out. Gilbert does not live in this world but insome world about which I know nothing.”

Mma-Millipede nodded her head slowly, with an expression onher face which clearly said: Oh, People, is that what foreign men arelike?

“Are you sure you want to marry, my child?” she asked, kindly.The young girl shrugged, helplessly. “I don’t know my own

mind, Mama,” she said, in despair. “I don’t know what I want. Youmust help me.”

“But you help yourself with your understanding, my child,” theold woman said. “As you know, we all live in a world that is full ofdanger. If a person cannot see this, he must be protected from thedanger.”

Maria stared meditatively at the table. “I thought so too,Mama,” she said slowly. “I don’t care about myself, but nothing mustharm Gilbert.”

These words suddenly relieved Mma-Millipede of the burden ofsentiment that was clouding her practical mind.

“There is so much to do,” she said. “And so little time. We haveto give a party. How often is there a wedding? Once in a blue moon.More likely it is death or ailments that bring people together. Two orthree goats will have to be slaughtered and some chickens for highdiet. I am out of rice. Has Papa any rice?”

“We have plenty, Mama,” the young girl said.“And what about a pretty dress in which to get married?” Mma-

Millipede said. “Never mind, we shall buy it tomorrow.”She sat for a moment, ticking off the items in her mind. The

goats would have to be slaughtered early in the morning and thenhung up to drain. No doubt she would have to accompany her oldfriend to the wedding ceremony, and there was only one other womanin the village capable of managing the party arrangements while shewas away – Paulina Sebeso. She stood up, searched for an old jacket,

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and, accompanied by Maria, walked to the home of her friend,Paulina.

They passed the farm and the lamp still burned in Makhaya’shut, and the two men still chatted like ancient blood brothers. Theypassed another home where the old man sat, staring pensively into thefire, contemplating the twists and turns of a long life which might endany day now, he thought, since his last and youngest child was aboutto marry. But if Dinorego thought about death near his softly glowingfire, Paulina Sebeso thought about life and how to have it more abund-antly. And the bright crackling flames of her fire danced upward intothe black sky. She sprang to her feet as the old woman and the youngwoman approached.

“I have a surprise,” Mma-Millipede said.And once she heard what it was, Paulina Sebeso turned round

and too vigorously pushed a log into the fire. She did this to cover upher confusion, and the disturbed fire sent sparks in all directions.Paulina was unashamedly joyful that a stroke of luck had removed herdeadliest competitor.

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Seven

Early the next morning, at the home of Mma-Millipede, bedlamreigned. The women of the village were there, and two goats,slaughtered and skinned, hung up by the feet from a tree to drain

off the excess blood. Until the blood flowed down to a trickle, therewas nothing much for the women to do except stand as close to eachother as possible and create the most ear-splitting din. This whole pro-cess is sometimes known as talking, but it has been said that it is onlyBasotho women who outmatch Batswana women at this art; that is,you stand about a foot away from your companion, heaye up yourchest, puff up the side veins of the neck and then let all you have insideyou come out, full blast. Somehow you laugh at the same time, and un-usual this sound is too, as though all the glass in the world were beinghurled into a deep pit and shrieking in agony. This noise attracted allthe goats in the village to the home of Mma-Millipede, for they knewfrom long experience that it was the signal for a thousand potato peelsto fall on the ground. They added to the din by fighting, pushing andbleating for the best positions. And, of course, Botswana is one of thegreatest tea-drinking countries in the world, so that the clatter of overa hundred teacups added the final touch to the shattering symphony.

Everyone had brought along a little something to put into thepot. Mostly it was potatoes, and these little gifts were tied up in gayblue, red and yellow checkered cloths and hung from the waists of thewomen, and these checkered splashes of colour swayed about as theytalked. At a sign from Paulina, an abrupt and deathly silence fell onthe gathering. A few women moved forward and sliced out the hard fatthat had surrounded the intestines of the animals and which, whenheated, melted down into oil. This fat was divided into equal portionsand placed in two large iron pots which stood near the fire. On top ofthis fat they poured small packets of curry powder. Another group ofwomen advanced on the slaughtered goats and, within a short space of

time, sliced away all the meat, leaving behind the bony skeleton. Themeat, fat, and curry powder then boiled away in big pots. Everyonemoved over to small wooden tables, on the top of each of which wasplaced a basin containing water; and then, with strained, absorbedfaces, the women peeled the potatoes, tossing them one by one intothe basins. Even the goats quieted down, absorbed in munching thepeels with their small dainty mouths.

A shrill high-pitched voice, the owner of which was carefullysubmerged in the group, broke the silence. “I am wondering about theforeigner who has recently come to the farm,” it said.

Since everyone had been wondering too, everyone kept quiet.“Who knows if he is married?” the shrill voice persisted.“Why don’t you direct your questions to Paulina Sebeso?” a

voice at the farthest end of the crowd shouted, and then, with a hint ofsarcasm, added, “After all, she’s the big brains around here.”

Everyone turned and stared at Paulina, and she had caught theslight edge of sarcasm and was angry yet remained calm.

“I know nothing,” she said, in a deliberately flat voice.“But you have eyes, Paulina Sebeso,” the sarcastic one contin-

ued, “You must have noticed that the foreigner is very handsome.”Paulina turned and stared at her tormentor. The owner of the

sarcastic voice was Grace Sebina, a rough, wild, promiscuous woman.They had been at loggerheads for some time.

“If your eyes chase all the men, Grace Sebina,” she said crisply,“please don’t put them on me.”

All the women stared at each other in shock. It wasn’t polite tocall a prostitute a prostitute in black and white terms.

“You don’t have to be so rude, Paulina Sebeso,” one of the olderwomen said, reprovingly. “Grace Sebina is portraying our ownthoughts. We all think the foreigner is handsome. We only want toknow if you think the same.”

Paulina stood there and bit on her tongue, too late, while theyall stared at her innocently. It was bait-talk. It had been planned. Theyall had permanent lovers or husbands while Paulina Sebeso had none,and even a tradition was forming about her. A few men had said she

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was too bossy. Then they all said it, overlooking the fact that they werewilting, effeminate shadows of men who really feared women. Thingswent along smoothly as long as all the women pretended to be inferiorto this spineless species. The women had been lying to themselves forso long in their sexual frustration that they would not admit the realreason why Paulina dominated them all was because she was the kindof woman who could not lie to men. They followed the leadership ofPaulina because she was so daring and different. It would have upsettheir world to have Paulina find a man she could get along with. Theywere determined to keep her trapped in a frustration far greater thantheir own. In fact, on several occasions, this powerful little clique hadstepped in and with a few poisonous, cunning words destroyed tentat-ive friendships. The innocent glances were therefore a challenge.Would she make a bid for the foreigner? And if so, was she prepared toface the consequences?

Paulina turned and stirred one of the pots with a big woodenstick. It wasn’t the women and their intriguing she feared but the un-trustworthiness of men with no strength or moral values. It was asthough a whole society had connived at producing a race of degeneratemen by stressing their superiority in the law and overlooking how itaffected them as individuals. These things Paulina felt intuitively, buthad not thought out in a coherent form. Strangely enough, she nowbegan to look with hope upon the event of the previous evening, whenMakhaya had spurned her gesture of friendship. If he had walkedstraight into her yard on her invitation, she reasoned, might he not toohave walked into every other woman’s yard?

So when the older, reproving woman said, “We see, Paulina Se-beso, you have no words to defend yourself?” she turned round andsmiled.

“What can I say, Mama,” she said, “I have seen the foreignerabout in the village. It seems to me he has big ears, and I don’t see howa man with such big ears can be handsome.”

The women turned and looked at each other with meaningfulglances as much as to say: We are not so easily fooled by you, PaulinaSebeso.

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Paulina was not like the women of Golema Mmidi, althoughshe had been born into their kind of world and fed on the same diet ofthin maize porridge by a meek, repressed, dull-eyed mother. But evenas a small child she kept on putting her nose into everything. “What’sthis, Mama?” she’d say, with a face screwed up with fun and mischief.She was so lively and meddlesome that her mother constantly kept alittle switch nearby, and it was quite a common sight in her village tosee Paulina racing through the thornbush with her mother hard on herheels, waving the switch. Because of this early practice, once she atten-ded school she became one of the fastest runners on sports competi-tion days. Her athletic ability had ensured her more education thanmost of the women in the village, and it was only the prospect of a se-cure and stable marriage that had made her discontinue attendingschool. But throughout her life she had retained her fresh, lively curi-osity and ability to enter an adventure, head first. It was all this thatreally distinguished her from the rest of the women, even though hercircumstances and upbringing were no different from theirs.

She had travelled a longer way, too, on the road of life, as unex-pected suffering always makes a human being do, and yet her thoughtswere as uncertain and intangible as the blue smoke of the fires whichunfurled into the still winter air and disappeared like vapour. Caughtup in this pensive mood, she hardly saw basin after basin of potatoesbeing pitched into the huge pots, yet she continued to stir the foodwith quick vigorous thrusts of the wooden spoon, and she hardlyheard the women chattering about the marriage ceremony, which wastaking place at that moment in the untidy office of George Appleby-Smith. (George, like the women, felt it to be an ordinary and naturaloutcome of events, because everything the unusual Gilbert did seemedto be harmonious and acceptable like the sunrise and sunsets. Georgehad only added a little drama and humour of his own. His office hadnot been swept out for some days, and he had kept the wedding partywaiting while, with a straight expressionless face, he swept the roomout.)

“I say, Paulina Sebeso,” one of the women said, “you’re lettingthe chickens burn.”

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Paulina started and poured a little water into a smaller pot inwhich two chickens were roasting in their own fat, and for a time, thechatter of the women imposed itself on the tangled wisps of herthoughts…

“But I must say the daughter of Dinorego is a lucky devil,”someone said enviously. “From now on she will live in comfort, aswhite men know how to make money, not like our men who don’t likework.”

“Do you suppose she had this comfort foremost in mind?”someone else asked.

“You can’t tell with Maria,” the other replied. “She’s too clever.”Since Paulina also shared this envy of Maria’s strange, un-

fathomable personality and was guilty about it, she turned on thespeakers, wrathfully, “I don’t like people to discuss a person who is notpresent.”

“Goodness!” Paulina Sjebeso, one of the speakers said with aninjured air. “You are in a cross mood today. Are you perhapspregnant?”

But Paulina’s reply was drowned in shrieks of laughter, andeven Paulina herself stood there laughing in confusion at herself.Many strange moods possessed her this day, as though, through somepremonition, she was being warned that her whole way of life wasabout to change.

The change itself was to be a devious, subtle one, the threads ofwhich were woven by three people who were to walk into the yard afew hours later: Gilbert, Mma-Millipede, and Makhaya. Of the three itwas only Makhaya who was vitally necessary to her existence. Mma-Millipede’s spur-of-the-moment wedding party for everyone drew to-gether the first few strands, which in turn were to draw in hundreds ofother strands, affecting the whole future pattern of life in GolemaMmidi. But it was all in the air that day and was in part responsible forPaulina’s changeable moods, her pensiveness and unfamiliar uncer-tainty. She was relieved, therefore, when at noon she stepped backfrom the cooking pots and seated herself on a stool in the shadow of ahut. A group of women, who had been idle, stepped up to the pots,

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getting ready to supervise the dishing up of the food when the weddingparty returned.

Shortly after this, the five farm workers and Pelotona, the per-mit man, walked into the yard, followed a little later by Mma-Milli-pede, Dinorego, and Maria. Maria looked much put out by being thecentre of attention for the day, because she was essentially a quiet andhumble personality. It all made her pretty, serious face more seriousthan usual, and she was at pains to conceal herself behind the amplefigure of Mma-Millipede. Not even her new frock of pale blue cotton,sprigged with small pale pink roses, could boost Maria’s morale. Thewomen of the village also put on constrained masks as they walkedabout serving the food in silence. They only let themselves go whenthey were a group together with no men present.

After a slight delay, Gilbert and Makhaya also walked into theyard, absorbed in a conversation. At least, Gilbert was doing the talk-ing and Makhaya the listening. Since she had only waited for the ap-pearance of Makhaya, Paulina looked up and stared at him in a still,intent, almost dispassionate way. She noted how he never once lookedat the face of the speaker but kept wrapped up in himself and walkedas though he was a single, separate and aloof entity. And yet at thesame time he concentrated so intensely on what was being said to himthat he seemed to have established an invisible bond between himselfand the speaker. Then Gilbert seemed to say something that indicatedthe end of the conversation and, picking up a hand-carved stool,walked over and sat down on the right side of Mma-Millipede, whohad Maria sitting on her left. Makhaya, in turn, looked around thegathering with a slight expression of surprise on his face, as if his ab-sorption in Gilbert’s conversation had made him unaware of his sur-roundings. Paulina’s heart turned over at this, and she bent her headand smiled to herself.

The old man, Dinorego, touched Makhaya on the arm and in-dicated a vacant seat next to him. Makhaya sat down.

“You know, son,” Dinorego said confidingly, “I thought the dayI met you: ‘Well, here is a most suitable man to marry my daughter.’Today, I cannot recover from my surprise, although I am very pleased

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that she is married to Gilbert. It means he will make his home hereand we shall progress.”

Makhaya merely laughed in reply, especially at the latter part ofthe old man’s speech. Moralizing seemed to be Dinorego’s speciality.

“And what about you, son?” the old man continued. “Might younot like to marry here too?”

Makhaya turned his head and looked at the old man, directly,half-amused, half-serious.

“Most men want to achieve great victories,” he said. “But I amonly looking for a woman.”

The old man nodded his head profoundly, but at the same timehe sensed snags in that simple statement. Makhaya appeared to himtoo complicated a man to have such straightforward desires.

“Might she be very educated or might she not be educated,son?” he asked.

“I know what I want, Papa,” Makhaya said quietly. “BecauseI’ve had so much of what I did not want.”

The old man said nothing but stared thoughtfully into the dis-tance. There were things in Makhaya he would never understand be-cause his own environment was one full of innocence. The terrors ofrape, murder and bloodshed in a city slum, which was Makhaya’sbackground, were quite unknown to Dinorego, but he felt inMakhaya’s attitude and utterances a horror of life, and it was asthough he was trying to flee this horror and replace it with innocence,trust, and respect. In many ways, Gilbert’s background was muchcloser to that of Dinorego’s than was Makhaya’s, because it containedthis same innocence and a lack of understanding of evil. Still, Dinore-go was an old man, governed by his own strange rules, and in the shortspace of time he had known him, he felt a closer bond with Makhaya,the way God usually feels towards the outcast beggar rolling in thedust.

“You must approach my friend Mma-Millipede,” Dinorego saidat last. “She will enjoy your conversation. She may also help you tofind the woman you seek, as she knows the heart of everyone.”

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Two women came up and handed the men plates of roast chick-en, with rice and potatoes, which they carried on a tray. Then theymoved over to Mma-Millipede, Gilbert and Maria and also servedthem. Gilbert took his plate and set it down on the ground before him.Just at that moment he had an urgent matter to discuss with Mma-Millipede and the food could wait. He looked at Mma-Millipedeanxiously. Would she be able to help him? he asked.

Mma-Millipede turned her face towards Gilbert and smiled.She adored him, as she identified him with her own love of mankind.

“You know there is nothing I would not do for you, my son,”she said.

But at the same time she calmly started eating and pointed athis plate, indicating that he should do the same. “If you don’t eat,” sheexplained, “the ants will soon invade your plate.”

Thus Gilbert was forced to delay his urgent proposal. Mma-Millipede in the meantime noticed the predicament of her friend,Paulina Sebeso, who seemed to have her big, dark eyes glued on theface of Makhaya, and so intent was she on staring that she seemed tohave forgotten herself completely. Mma-Millipede felt acute distress.

My friend is going to make a fool of herself over the man, shethought.

Over the years, Mma-Millipede had traced two distinct rela-tionships women had with men in her country. The one was a purelyphysical relationship. It caused no mental breakdown and was freeand casual, each woman having six or seven lovers, including a hus-band as well. The other was more serious and more rare. It could leadto mental breakdown and suicide on the part of the woman, because,on the one hand, it assumed that the man was worthy of adoration,while in reality he was full of shocks and disappointments; and on theother, this adoration assumed the proportions of a daily diet of a mostdangerous nature. Since Mma-Millipede had to sew the funeral gar-ments, she had come to dread this latter type of relationship and gavepreference, against her conscience, to the former. Surely, shereasoned, it was far better to have a country of promiscuous womenthan a country of dead women? Mma-Millipede looked over at

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Makhaya. No matter how hard she tried, she could not form a judg-ment on his character because of her inhibition about foreign men.She sighed deeply.

She put her plate down, momentarily debating ways in whichshe could question Gilbert about Makhaya’s character. These ques-tions would have to be very subtle and not reveal her real interest,which was to protect and advise her friend, Paulina Sebeso. At thesame time Gilbert also put down his plate and turned towards Mma-Millipede.

The problem was this, Gilbert explained. He wanted the womenof the village, first and foremost, to start producing cash crops whichwould be marketed co-operatively through the farm. The idea was toget capital in hand which would open up the way for purchasing fertil-izers, seed and the equipment necessary to increase food production inGolema Mmidi. Once people had enough to eat, other problems likebetter housing, water supplies and good education for the childrencould be tackled. Now, said Gilbert, one of the easiest and most profit-able cash crops to grow was Turkish tobacco. If each woman cultivateda small plot of Turkish tobacco, harvested and cured it herself, and if itwere all marketed co-operatively, the profits could then be spread outto good purpose. Could Mma-Millipede persuade the women to attendlessons at the farm on how to cultivate Turkish tobacco and how tobuild a curing and drying shed?

Mma-Millipede nodded her head vigorously. Like Gilbert, shehad vision and she clearly saw the wondrous benefits that would ac-crue to the people of Golema Mmidi.

“Are you going to give the women instruction, my son?” sheasked.

“No, not me, but Makhaya,” he said. “I’ve specially asked himto accept responsibility for this side of the work. The farm itself takesup all my time, Mma-Millipede, but I’m anxious that it should not pro-gress beyond the living conditions of the people of Golema Mmidi.Both have to grow together. I chose Makhaya for this side of the workbecause I think he will enjoy imparting knowledge to people.”

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Mma-Millipede sat rigidly silent on receiving this news, yet hermind began to work at a rapid and alert pace. The only woman whowould have the courage to persuade the other women to attend lessonsat the farm was Paulina Sebeso, and having to approach Makhaya at acloser level, in the company of other women, might help her friend toput this sudden adoration on a sounder basis. But Mma-Millipede stillneeded a little information in order to be able to advise her friend onhow she should conduct herself without coming to grief.

“Is Makhaya a man of good character?” she asked innocently.Gilbert stared at her in surprise. Why, all his future plans de-

pended on Makhaya. Not only that, he had had no way of starting theplan of this new venture until Makhaya had arrived. He had no way ofexplaining to Mma-Millipede the real subtleties of his relationshipwith Makhaya, that he was someone he now leaned on heavily forcourage to push ahead with his ideas. Gilbert had long known that hissurvival in Golema Mmidi depended on many complicated factors, oneof these being Chief Sekoto. It did not take him long to find out thatChief Sekoto did not care deeply about development projects and thathe, Gilbert, was the medium through which Chief Sekoto inflicted re-venge on his brother Matenge. Gilbert had been fearful of being critic-al about the African way of life, which seemed to him a deadly, chillingsociety which kept out anything new and strange. It was as thoughpeople looked at each other all the time, questioning themselves: Am Iexactly the same as my neighbour? The fear was to differ from the nextman, and he could see it in so many little ways, even in Golema Mmidi– the way a great scientific discovery like the drought-resistant milletmeant nothing against traditional prejudice. Would the superior Mot-swana turn overnight into a Kalahari bushman if he ate millet? Heseemed to think so, irrespective of the fact that millet was just an inno-cent food which an ‘inferior’ tribe had developed a liking for. Thisdamned millet, even though fields and fields of it could be grown inthis country. Of course, he had Dinorego, who copied him ineverything, but once Makhaya had come to the village a lot of his silenttortures had blown away in the wind. It mattered very much to Gilbertto have as a friend a man who looked as black as everyone else and yet

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was not at all a part of these chilling group attitudes. And there wasmore to Makhaya’s personality than that – a gentleness that commu-nicated itself as a strength and gave peace to others, a complete lack offear, and a background of persecution which made it so easy for him toidentify himself with the rags and tatters of the poor. But there wasmore still, there was more, and he bent his head searching around forsome coherent explanation of his liking for Makhaya. He grasped thefirst thought that flashed across his mind:

“Makhaya is one of the most truthful men on earth,” he said.“You can depend on him. Besides, he is a real friend to me.”

Mma-Millipede was very moved by this declaration. “Gilbert,”she said, seriously, “I think I accept your word. Tomorrow I’ll send afriend to the farm who will discuss the matter with you. I think she willalso bring along her friends. Excuse me, I shall approach her rightaway.”

Mma-Millipede arose and walked slowly in the direction ofPaulina Sebeso. It was most urgent to her future schemes that she pre-vent Paulina from staring any longer at Makhaya like a felled ox. ButMma-Millipede’s sudden rising had left Maria without her shelter, andall at once she looked like a fragile wild flower, about to be blown awayin the wind. Gilbert turned his head and looked at her, feelingstrangely uncertain that he was really married to this changeable, un-predictable woman. There were two women in her – one was soft andmeditative and the other was full of ruthless common sense, and thesetwo uncongenial personalities clashed and contradicted each other allthe time. He wasn’t ever sure if Maria was in need of his constant pro-tection or whether everyone was really superfluous to this still, mid-night world or quiet self-absorption in which she lived. She was in oneof her self-absorbed moods right now. He moved over to Mma-Milli-pede’s vacant seat, took one of her hands in his, and bent his headteasingly near her face.

“What are you thinking about, Pal?” he asked.She raised her head and stared at him steadily, and that steady

stare always meant fireworks. “Are you going back to England oneday?” she asked abruptly.

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The edges of his eyes crinkled up in amusement. “We mighthave to,” he said.

Maria placed her free hand straight out on her knee, indicatingshe had made a rule from which she was not going to budge. “You willhave to go back to England by yourself,” she said, flatly, “I shall notlive in England with you.”

“You mean you don’t love me, Pal?” he asked, pretendingdespair.

“It’s not that, Gilbert,” she said crisply. “I won’t feel free inEngland.”

And a lot of funny things occurred to Gilbert all at once. Of late,the Joas Tsepe crowd had been issuing blood-curdling pamphletsabout the volunteers in Batswana, calling them the unemployed of Bri-tain who had come here to cheat the Batswana out of jobs. If the JoasTsepes overthrew the government by force, as they were always threat-ening to do, he would be frozen out of the country. He had not felt freein England either, at least not in the upper middle class backgroundinto which he had been born, where the women all wore pearls, andeveryone was nice and polite to everyone, and you could not tell friendfrom foe behind the polite brittle smiles; and if your mother’s brotherbought his wife a mansion, your mother had to have a mansion too orthreaten to commit suicide, and then your mother almost did commitsuicide a few years after you were born because all the polite womenkept on remarking on how you were such a big-boned lad with an un-gainly walk and didn’t somehow quite fit.

“You really ought to send the child to dancing school, Eliza-beth,” they all said. “It’s sure to correct his walk.”

And this stupid, neurotic mother had sent him to dancingschool, and the dancing teacher had sent him home in tears becausehe had given her a belly punch when she had tried to force him todance, and since the belly punch had worked on the dancing teacher,he also tried out a few on his mother; and the way it is with neuroticwomen, she soon invented a number of excuses as to why it was helived almost the year round in a tent among the trees. The birds hadtrailed tiny footpaths through the dense-white, dew-wet grass on

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summer mornings, and the leaden winter skies had looked like greatswathes of eternity which were there to stay, forever and forever. Buthe found out that there was no eternity: only the ever changing patternof life. And it was from his tent among the trees that he had learnedhis humility and tenderness, and that this humility was not compatiblewith the great causes of the world but only with some work done,preferably in a quiet backwater like Golema Mmidi.

Still, from some unknown quarter, Gilbert had acquired a num-ber of conservative ideas about married life – like it was the man whowas the boss and who laid down rules.

“You’re not Dinorego’s daughter any more,” he said to Maria, ina quiet threatening voice. “You’re my wife now and you have to do as Isay. If I go back to England, you go there too.”

The woman of common sense retreated rapidly before thethreat, and the other woman softly contradicted her, “I did not say Iwon’t obey you, Gilbert. I only wanted to find out what was on yourmind.”

But thoughts of home, of England, had struck Gilbert with asudden, deep loneliness. The feel of the still, blue, Botswana winterday had the same feel of the February days in England when the snow-drops came out. He stood up and pulled Maria by the hand, and to-gether they walked away far into the bush where the scarlet and goldbirds talked to each other in low, soft tones.

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Eight

Paulina Sebeso awoke early the next morning. She was in a slightlyunbalanced mood, and the clear, sparkling light of the headywinter morning added to her intoxication. On the previous day at

the wedding party Mma-Millipede had told her certain things that hadmade her heart drunk with joy. She had had to struggle to concentrateon the details of the tobacco growing project, and Mma-Millipede, no-ticing this, had added a number of stern warnings: You must above allcontrol yourself, my friend. You must pretend you are interested in thetobacco and give yourself time to study the man. Foreign men needstudying, even though I accept Gilbert’s word that he is a good man.

Not long after Paulina had lit her small outdoor fire to make teaand heat washing water, ten other women walked briskly into theyard. Twenty more had been willing to join the tobacco growing pro-ject, but they first had to get the permission of their husbands. The tenwomen who joined Paulina were agog with excitement. They seatedthemselves around the jutting mud foundation of one of Paulina’s hutsand ragged her about not having washed yet, nor made tea.

“Goodness! The tobacco won’t run away,” Paulina said gaily,and she splashed some water into a basin.

It was always like this. Any little thing was an adventure. Theywere capable of pitching themselves into the hardest, most sustainedlabour with perhaps the same joy that society women in other parts ofthe world experience when they organize fêtes or tea parties. No menever worked harder than Botswana women, for the whole burden ofproviding food for big families rested with them. It was their sticksthat thrashed the corn at harvesting time and their winnowing basketsthat filled the air for miles and miles around with the dust of husks,and they often, in addition to broadcasting the seed when the earlyrains fell, took over the tasks of the men and also ploughed the landwith oxen.

As always, when women left their own homes for the day, theytook with them their food supplies in the bright checkered cloths, andthese they undid now. One of the women stood up and collected smallhelpings of tea leaves and powdered milk from each bundle, and thenboth the powdered milk and tea leaves were poured at the same timeinto the boiling water. By the time Paulina emerged, dressed andwashed, with her small daughter, tea was ready and poured. Also aplate of flat, hard sorghum cakes was handed around. Paulina took afew of the cakes off the plate and wrapped them in a cloth and handedthis to the child, instructing her, as it was school holidays, to go andspend the day at the home of Mma-Millipede. Then they all drank thetea with clouds of vapour rising up from the mugs into the cold air.Each woman then carefully rinsed her mug and tied it up once again inthe checkered cloth. They arose and walked in a brisk, determinedgroup to the farm, Paulina taking the lead as she always and automat-ically did.

They found the farm yard deserted, but tractors whirred out inthe fields as the winter ploughing was still in progress. Maria,however, emerged from one of the huts and waved and smiled. Theyhardly recognized her. She seemed quite changed, and not one of thewomen could ever recall when Maria had ever looked anything butpensive. They all fell on her, teasing her mercilessly and talking all atonce.

“Hmm, married life changes a person,” they said. “Tell us! Howdoes he kiss? Come on, tell us!”

Maria waited until the uproar had died down, smiling in hersecret way all the while. Then she raised one hand.

“You must all wait until Makhaya comes off the land,” she said.“He is taking lessons in tractor ploughing, as this is new to him. Hewill be here quite soon.”

“Where is the husband?” they asked.“He’s working in the office,” she said.The women again, settled themselves around the jutting mud

foundation of the hut, and the tea-drinking ritual was once more

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repeated, amidst much laughter and jokes about married life to dis-comfort Maria.

They had just tucked away their mugs when Makhaya ap-peared. He walked to his own hut to remove a blue overall and thenapproached the women. They all stood up and said, “Good-day, sir,”together. Makhaya paused, looked at them, smiled and said, “Good-morning,” in a friendly, natural voice as though he was long accus-tomed to receiving people as his guests. Then he said, “Follow me,”and led the way to a part of the yard where a small plot of tobacco hadbeen cultivated.

The experimental plot was forty-eight square yards. It had beenscaled down to this size by Gilbert, as being the most manageable areafor each individual woman to cultivate in her own yard. But one hun-dred such plots were needed to produce the quantity of tobacco thatwould be profitable to market, and this also meant that a hundred ormore women had to become involved in the project.

The small group of women, including Paulina, at first felt alittle inhibited. They were unaccustomed to a man speaking to them asan equal. They stood back awhile, with uneasy expressions, but once itstruck them that he paid no attention to them as women, they also for-got he was a man and became absorbed in following his explanations.And this was really part of the magic of Makhaya’s personality. Hecould make people feel at ease. He could change a whole attitude ofmind merely in the way he raised his hand or smiled. But he never ex-erted himself, seeming to leave it to the other party with whom he wascommunicating to do all the exerting and changing.

He stood and pointed to the plot on which a foot high of to-bacco was already growing. It was growing on a gently sloping mound,and this had been created by building up the soil in a heap, the sameas when one constantly pitches ash in one place. The need for thismound was to assist in draining the soil, as well-drained soil wasneeded for the tobacco. He also broke off a tobacco leaf and explainedthe very dark blue-green colouring meant that it was an unripe leaf,but once the leaf had matured it changed to a pale, light olive green.

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He stopped talking awhile and turned and looked at the womento ask them a few direct questions. The experimental plot would beready for harvesting in about three months’ time. If the women har-vested, cured and dried this first batch together, they would gain thenecessary experience and be able that much sooner to cultivate, har-vest and process their own tobacco. Therefore, it had been decided byhim and Gilbert that the first tobacco curing shed be built in the yardof someone who lived nearest the farm.

“Who lives near the farm?” he asked.The women all turned and looked at Paulina Sebeso, Makhaya

also followed the direction of their glance, and a faint, quizzical ex-pression flitted across his face, as though he knew the woman butcould not remember under what circumstances he had met her. Cer-tainly, the gaudy-hued skirt was familiar. Certainly, he rememberedthe big, bold eyes. Paulina bent her head in alarm and embarrassment.

“I live near the farm,” she muttered.It was only when they had collected the equipment and walked

in the direction of the sunset house that Makhaya recalled the brief in-cident of two nights ago when a small girl had approached him andtouched his hand. He was very fond of children, and as they walked in-to the yard he turned to Paulina and said, “Where’s the child?”

“She’s at the home of Mma-Millipede,” Paulina replied, but sheaverted her head, as the unexpected question made her feel strangelyvulnerable and exposed.

They set down the equipment for building the shed – pickaxes,spades, tar matting, and pitch – and Makhaya walked about the yardlooking for a suitable site. In a secluded corner of the yard hestumbled upon a gigantic operation. It was the work of the little girl.She was in the process of building a model village, all carved out ofmud. There were mud goats, mud cattle, mud huts and mud people,and grooved little footpaths for them all to walk on.

He stood staring at it for some time, a look of pure delight onhis face. Then he turned and chose a site as far removed as possiblefrom this sanctuary of genius, and with lengths of string marked outthe shallow foundation for the tobacco curing and drying shed.

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The women, with pickaxes and spades, scraped out the founda-tion. The plan of the shed itself in no way resembled the instructionssent to Gilbert by the tobacco research station, as the curing sheds toohad been scaled down to a measurement of ten feet by ten feet andwere to be built with materials that were easily available in GolemaMmidi – like lots of mud. Makhaya divided a twenty-foot square intotwo chambers. One was to be a closed shed, with no draughts, whichwould provide the warmth and humidity needed for the colouringstage of the tobacco leaf. In this shed the leaves would be placed on thefloor in single layers, on sacks. The other shed was to contain the cur-ing racks for drying the leaf and was to have a removable roof to con-trol the amount of sunlight received by the leaf. To prevent the whiteants from rising up the mud wall, a layer of pitch and tar matting wasplaced in the foundation. This would also serve as a flooring for theclosed shed.

Maria also appeared and assisted in the building of the thickmud walls. It was her intention to cultivate a patch of tobacco for herfather, whom she also wanted included in the scheme. For some timelittle could be heard except the soft padding of women’s feet as theywalked to and fro with piles of mud and the tap, tap of Makhaya’shammer as he worked on preparing the curing racks. Paulina had de-liberately chosen the job of mud-mixing. It called for more vigorousexertion and was also a lookout post during the brief pauses when nomud was needed. But she never saw much, in spite of her elation, be-cause the object of her brief devouring looks kept his head bent at hisown task, and so quiet was he that after a time even the women forgothis presence and began to chatter and gossip loudly.

Towards noon Maria washed her hands in a pail of water andapproached Paulina.

“I’m going home to prepare some food,” she said, quietly. “Youmust tell Makhaya that I shall put aside some lunch for him.”

Paulina rested one bare foot on her spade. “Why can’t Makhayaeat with us?” she said haughtily. “After all, he’s working with us.”

“But he doesn’t like goat meat and sour milk porridge,” Mariaexplained mildly.

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“Did he say so?” Paulina demanded.“No, he hasn’t complained,” Maria said. “Gilbert doesn’t like it

either, although he has said nothing. I can just see by their expressionsthat they dislike it.”

“Goodness!” Paulina said in a fierce whisper. “So you encour-age foreigners to stick up their noses at our diet? Haven’t you heardthe saying: When you are in Rome, you must do as the Romans do? Ifpeople don’t like our diet, they must starve. There’s nothing else.”

Maria looked at her steadily. “Don’t get mad now,” she said. “Iwas just explaining a fact.”

She shrugged and walked away quickly, as she disliked a wordbattle with Paulina, who always managed to get in the last punch.Paulina waited until she had left the yard, then she dropped her spadeto the ground as a signal to the other women to stop work. The wallswere five feet high and complete; only the rough surface had to besmoothed, and this would be done more easily after the mud had hadtime to dry a bit. One of the women immediately walked over to thefireplace to start a fire to warm up the goat meat while the rest filed tothe water bucket. Paulina walked determinedly over to Makhaya. Hewas still crouched down on one knee, on a sack, and had almost com-pleted the curing rack.

“Will you eat food with us, sir?” she asked.“Yes, thank you,” he said, without looking up. “My name is

Makhaya. What’s yours?”“I’m Paulina Sebeso,” she said, making it sound an important

fact.But she did not move away and Makhaya looked up, slightly

amused, slightly inquiring. She looked down at him with a haughtyexpression.

“Perhaps you don’t like goat meat and sour milk porridge?” shequeried, in a somewhat penetrating voice, mostly for the benefit of herfriends, who had stopped abruptly and were staring.

“I like goat meat,” Makhaya said quickly and untruthfully.

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But privately he loathed it. The meat was tough and had aweird taste, like thick squeezed-out grass juice or wild herbs. Paulinainstantly sensed the lie and decided to rub it in.

“I just wanted to know,” she said, still using that penetratingvoice. “Goat meat is all we eat. Sour milk porridge is a daily diet. WeBatswana even sometimes eat rotten meat through which the wormscrawl. We just wash away the worms.”

Makhaya turned his head and found himself faced with the riv-eted glances of ten pairs of keen, thrilled eyes. And there was thisloud-mouthed woman whose, long, straight black legs dominated himin his crouched position. He rose quickly, relieved to see that he was awhole foot taller than she was. He stared at her with a look that said,So, you want something from me, do you?

Aloud he said, “Well, don’t wash off the worms for me. I won’tnotice them.”

The ‘don’t wash off the worms for me’ brought a shriek oflaughter from the gallery and also from Paulina, who rushed away inconfusion to one of the huts. But it served to permanently break theice between Makhaya and the women. Once they had washed theirhands, they crowded near him, asking him all sorts of questions, whichhe answered in a carefree, casual way.

“Tell us about your country,” they said.“But it’s just like yours,” he said, amused. “There are people

there and the same kind of stars.”“But our country isn’t the same as yours,” a voice piped up,

boldly contradicting him. “You have electricity and water and wedon’t.”

“I don’t know anything about the water and electricity,” he said.“Why?” they all asked at once.“It belongs to the white man at present,” he said. “He’ll tell you

so, if you go there. I think the country even belongs to him.”The women all stared at each other with wide eyes. Hmmm, so

he was a politician, as the rumour had it in the village? These politi-cians were supposed to be feared in Botswana. But he was nice. Theysmiled at him, to reassure him, which amused Makhaya very much.

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And this ‘Tell us’ went on for the whole length of the lunchhour, and no doubt that quiet, brotherly attitude of sympathy was verysincere, because Makhaya had an infinite capacity to attend to the de-tails of life, and it often pleased him to turn careless or insignificantideas into something quite their opposite. But only one woman sat alittle apart, with a thoughtful look on her face. She was curious aboutthe man behind the brother because, when she had come right upclose and looked him straight in the eye, she had found almost nothingthere, just a blank, calm wall; and since she was so acutely aware ofhim, she was also aware of the significance of that wall. You see, itsaid, I’m quite safe. No one can invade my life.

Yet it was not so much the privacy of his inner life and the wallhe had built around it that troubled Paulina. She was first and fore-most a physically alive woman, and she was also physically frustrated,and what she needed most of all was someone who would end thisphysical frustration. So intense was this need that it had made hervery sensitive to men, especially the type of man most likely to fulfil it.It was only an equally blind and intense desire to own and possess aman to herself that prevented her from having any lovers, and this lat-ter need always asserted itself over her physical desires. But in a soci-ety like this, which man cared to be owned and possessed when therewere so many women freely available? And even all the excessive love-making was purposeless, aimless, just like tipping everything into anawful cess-pit where no one really cared to take a second look. AndPaulina was too proud a woman to be treated like a cess-pit. But shewasn’t sure either of anything morally definite. In fact, the word ‘mor-al’ was really meaningless to her. She simply wanted a man who wasn’ta free-for-all. No doubt, the other women longed for this too becauseintense bloody battles often raged between women and women overmen, and yet, perversely, they always set themselves up for sale to thefirst bidder who already had so many different materials in his shopthat he was simply bored to death by the display.

And she liked this reserved man and the quiet about him, asthough he could pick and choose a bit and use his discrimination, butwhat troubled her, when standing quite close to him, was that this

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calm, blank wall applied not only to the expression of his face but tothe feel of his body as well, as though it did not exist, as though it wasnot there at all. Yet he seemed a man who was very conscious of hisappearance. No doubt, in his own country, he had spent a great deal ofmoney on clothes, for the different changes of black sweaters that hewore about the farm were expensive ones. There was a gay life thathad gone hand in hand with those expensive clothes, she thought. Per-haps pretty, perfumed women too, those who wore red high-heeledshoes and stockings and painted their lips. She stared at Makhaya in-tently, trying to see all those women and how they had laughed andtalked to him, because in Golema Mmidi there was no perfume, redshoes, and lipstick. But Makhaya sat there talking to the barefoot, illit-erate women of Golema Mmidi as though he had done this all his life,just as throughout that morning he had worked side by side withthem, like a brother.

He makes us feel at ease, she thought, because he has no feel-ing. He takes away the feeling in us that he is a man. But my heart tellsme it’s not true. Mma-Millipede was right when she said the manneeds studying.

Once Paulina became thoughtful, she also experienced hermost sane moments and placed a curb on the rash, impulsive gesturesshe continuously made. Also, a little humility entered her life, makingher less sure that everything in the world ought to belong to her. It wasin this subdued mood that she picked up her spade to work again.There was not much mud to mix, only a little for the smoothing of thewalls. Two women delegated themselves for this job, while the rest satalong the jutting mud foundations of the huts and, in pairs, beganweaving the long smooth, dried river reeds into roofs and doors for thesheds. Maria also returned and teamed up with Paulina, who had justput down her spade. Makhaya, who had by this time fitted in the cur-ing racks in one of the sheds, seated himself alongside Maria. He had afew short sticks in his hand and took out a pocket knife and began sli-cing away at the wood.

“What are you doing?” Paulina asked, after a time.

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“The village has no trees,” he said, and held up one of the piecesof wood which he had shaped into a tall, slender palm tree. “Do youthink the child will mind if I interfere?”

Paulina kept her head bent, and when she replied it was barelyabove a whisper and very polite: “She will appreciate it, sir.”

Makhaya took one of the reeds off Maria’s lap and split it up in-to the shape of palm fronds. These he dipped into the pitch bucketnearby and then carefully clustered the ends on to the top of the trees.He also placed the foot of each tree into the pitch bucket to prevent itsfuture damage by the white ants; then he curled a finger around eachtree and walked over to the village. Gilbert walked into the yard ashort while later and stood gazing at the almost complete tobaccosheds with the same delight in his eyes as Makhaya looked on theminute village of mud people and animals. To Gilbert this shed meantthe difference between having no money and the capital to set up anetwork of boreholes and reservoirs in Golema Mmidi. It meant waterfor every household, for vegetable gardens, for irrigation schemes, forcattle grazing grounds in the village, and for improved methods ofcrop production. He walked over to where Makhaya was croucheddown on one knee beside the miniature village and removed the lasttree from his hand. Then he stood back and surveyed the layout of thevillage. Once he had decided on the most suitable spot for the tree, hecrouched down beside Makhaya.

“Each household will have to have a tap with water running outof it all the year round,” he said. “And not only palm trees, but fruittrees too and flower gardens. It won’t take so many years to turnGolema Mmidi into a paradise. Look, Mack, do you think we could geta hundred of these sheds done before the rainy season? If so, we’d beable to get the tobacco growing off the ground this year.”

“There’s only one person here who can supply the answer toyour question,” Makhaya said. “She’s wearing an orange and red skirtand she’s sitting next to your wife. But I’d advise you to just hand herthose one hundred membership cards and let her work out the detailsfor herself. She seems to run this whole village by sheer will power andeven tried to get me to eat worms for lunch.”

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Gilbert laughed and looked round in the direction of whereMaria was seated. He saw the bold coloured skirt and the equally bold-looking eyes as Paulina turned her head in his direction. He turnedand looked at Makhaya. He’d noticed Mma-Millipede approach thisvery women on the previous day and also, like Mma-Millipede, hadnoted the way in which she had stared at Makhaya.

“What makes the world turn round, Mack?” he asked, smiling.“I don’t know,” Makhaya said, as he was absorbed in studying

the future needs of the tiny village, and Gilbert wanted to saysomething, but had an abrupt change of mind.

“It’s polythene pit dams,” he said. “We’ll need water right awayto help the tobacco along, and I’ve figured out a way in which we cantrap the storm waters in a deep pit lined with polythene.”

He stood up as he had noticed that one of the roofs was com-plete and that Paulina and Maria held it together and were approach-ing the pitch bucket. He picked up the tar brush and walked over tothem, as he wanted to get to know the woman in the bright skirt. Hewas also in a mood of quiet elation, gathering in a number of scattereddetails all at once. The village to him these three long years had reallyonly meant Dinorego, so much so that he knew every corner of the oldman’s mind, and Dinorego was like a patch of cloth that had grown onGilbert. Everything had its start there, but once the start had beenmade so many others, like Maria, Mma-Millipede, Pelotona and the si-lent, reserved men who sold cattle to the co-operative, had grown onhim too until his whole outlook was entirely Botswana, until the daywould never arrive when he would be able to extricate himself.

Since there was no way out, the only other alternative was toget to grips with a whole life in a narrow, confined space. Because itwas a harsh and terrible country to live in. The great stretches of aridland completely stunned the mind, and every little green shoot thatyou put down into the barren earth just stood there, single, frail, shud-dering, and not even a knowledge of soils or the germinating ability ofseeds or modern machinery could help you to defeat this expansiveocean of desert. And people, mentally, fled before this desert ocean,content to scrape off bits of living from its outskirts, where a few roads

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had been built or where a lonely railway line hugged its way along theeastern border area. This fleeing away from the overwhelming ex-pressing itself in all sorts of ways, particularly in the narrow, crampedhuts into which people crept at the end of each day, and those twobags of corn which were painstakingly reaped off a small plot.

It was his understanding of this mental flight that gave him adifferent outlook on subsistence farming. If a man thought small,through fear of overwhelming odds, no amount of modern machinerywould help him to think big. You had to work on those small plots andmake them pay. Once they began to pay you could then begin extend-ing the production. But you had to start small, and because of thissmall start, co-operative marketing was the only workable answer, andits principle of sharing the gains and hardships would so much lessenthe blows they had to encounter along the way. Maybe they could startwith tobacco growing, scaled down to small plots, and cotton and mil-let and groundnuts and…

He looked up at Paulina from his crouched position near themat and smiled. It wasn’t really her he saw but that look in her eyes,not really boldness after all but the natural expression of a powerfuland alert personality, and beyond that, all such a personality could ac-complish. Why, one day there’d be some real family life and all themen would be back in the village again and the cattle would be rightnearby behind enclosed, communally owned grazing grounds, and insummer the cattle would feed on grass that was three feet high anddripped with dew, and some of the men might like to engage them-selves entirely in the business of producing high-grade beef and othersmight like to turn Golema Mmidi into one of the greatest tobacco pro-ducing areas in the country, and by that time some of the womenwould have become so expert in the tobacco business they might liketo help along, or they might be a little rich and swanky by then andworry about the ladder in their new stockings or discuss their chil-dren’s ailments over dainty cups of tea.

“Are you the friend of Mma-Millipede?” he asked.“Yes,” she said.

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“She said I’d meet you today,” he said. “But she omitted to giveme your name.”

Paulina told him her name and he bent his head for a whileconcentrating on putting a coat of pitch on the lightweight roof tomake it waterproof.

“How many women would like to grow tobacco?” he asked.“Every woman in the village,” she said.“Are you sure?” he asked, looking up.She looked down at him, and smiled. “We who are here are the

bravest,” she said. “We are the only women who have smoked cigar-ettes and drunk beer. That is why whatever we do is also done by theother women, though they are afraid to smoke and drink because theywill be beaten by their husbands.”

Gilbert looked down but he smiled in huge enjoyment. “HasMaria smoked cigarettes too?” he asked.

Paulina looked across at Maria, who stood opposite her, andMaria stared back. The girl had never been a part of them. She hadjust always lived her own life in which no one shared and she was fullof quiet shocks. It wouldn’t surprise anyone, except perhaps Gilbert, ifshe declared herself unmarried within a few days, as she had beenknown to say grass was green on one day and then flatly announcethat it was yellow on the next. She must not only have smoked, Paulinasuspected, but also reeled with beer. If so, she kept this experience toherself, as though everything she did was special and exceptional. Youeither had to say very bad things about Maria or leave her alone.Therefore, Paulina kept quiet. Maria looked at Gilbert’s bent head andshe only straightened one small foot to emphasize her point.

“I haven’t smoked cigarettes, Gilbert,” she said in that flat, dryvoice of statement. “And women who do so aren’t brave. They are onlyboasters.”

She looked across at Paulina with hostility. She really fearedher as a woman. Like all the other women, she suspected that mensecretly liked Paulina, and she did not care for the thought that Gilbertmight find her gay and carefree generosity appealing. Gilbert lookedup and caught this exchange of hostile looks between the two women.

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He turned to Makhaya who was approaching and said, “Mack,you’d better take my wife home. See you get something other thanworms to eat. I’m going to stay here a bit and wind up the work.”

Makhaya stood looking at Paulina for a brief moment, a faintsmile on his face. She was entirely unaware that her skirt was the sameflaming colour as the sun, which was about to go down on the horizon,and that both were beautiful to him. But being Makhaya, he kept thisto himself and started walking away. Then the group of women alsofiled out and stopped to chat with their new casual friend awhile andwalk on. Then the small girl with bright, black beady eyes stepped intothe yard, her tiny skirt swishing about like a gust of wind with therhythm of her walk. Makhaya stared at her in surprise and delight andthen bent his head attentively to what Maria was saying, and theywalked away together. Paulina noticed all this with a strange, black,helpless rage in her heart. Why did everyone she ever wanted have togo away? And always in the company of women who did not particu-larly want them. She was a little startled that the child had been tug-ging at her hand for some time.

“Mama,” she said. “Mama, who put the trees in my village?”“It’s Gilbert’s friend. You must run and thank him.”The child sped out of the yard and Paulina looked at Gilbert,

who was still intent on finishing the roofs.“Will you have some tea before you go, Gilbert?” she asked,

suddenly remembering polite Batswana customs.“Yes, make some tea,” he said without looking up, but once she

had turned her back he rested on one knee and looked at her with astrange expression. She was invaluable to him, and without her energyand initiative nothing would start, and more than anything else in theworld he wanted one hundred women, at least, to start growing to-bacco. But perhaps she cared only about Makhaya and not the to-bacco, at least so it seemed to Gilbert, and if something went wrongwith her intentions towards Makhaya and he took up with someoneelse, she might collapse, everything might collapse. Far too many ofhis calculations depended on the unpredictable human factor, and itwasn’t like machines and experiments which you could control. He

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couldn’t judge what Makhaya would do once he became aware of thewoman’s interest. Like Mma-Millipede, Gilbert suddenly found him-self plunged into anxiety. He stood up and walked over to wherePaulina was busy near the fire.

“You know, Paul,” he said: “To get one hundred women organ-ized into a tobacco growing co-operative will be a lot of hard work. I’dlike you to be put down officially as part of the staff and on a salary.Would you agree?”

Paulina swung round with her quick, generous smile. “The jobhas to be a success first,” she said. “You mustn’t worry about the to-bacco, Gilbert. The women will grow it as they have never worked formoney before, and we Batswana like money.”

The child stepped back into the yard and Gilbert suddenly feltlight-hearted. He liked optimism too; in fact, he knew he could build aworld on nothing. He swung the little girl on to his lap.

“How many children do you think I ought to have, Paul?” heasked.

“Goodness, I don’t know,” she said.“I think I’ll just close my eyes and make as many as I want,” he

said gaily.He took the cup of tea she held out to him and drank it quickly

because it was nearly pitch dark. Then he set the child down andswung his way homeward. No sooner had he left than Paulina turnedto the child eagerly.

“What did the friend of Gilbert say?”“He said I have no grass for my cattle and goats to graze on,

Mama.”“Is that so?” Paulina said, half-talking to herself and smiling.

“Did he say he’d make some?”“Yes,” the child said.Paulina gazed thoughtfully into the fire. It had surprised her

when Makhaya had inquired about the child. Batswana men no longercared. In fact, a love affair resulting in pregnancy was one sure way ofdriving a man away, and it was a country of fatherless children now.Perhaps, she thought, this man still had tribal customs which forced

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him to care about children. Every protection for women was breakingdown and being replaced by nothing.

And there was something so deeply wrong in the way a womanhad to live, holding herself together with her backbone, because, nomatter to which side a woman might turn, there was this trap of loneli-ness. Most women had come to take it for granted, entertaining them-selves with casual lovers. Most women with fatherless childrenthought nothing of sending a small boy out to a lonely cattle post toherd cattle to add to the family income. But then, such women expec-ted life to give them nothing. And if you felt the strain of such a life, allthe way down your spine, surely it meant that you were just holding onuntil such time as a miracle occurred? And how many miracles an or-dinary woman needed these days. Paulina sighed bitterly and deeply,exhausted by the tensions and excitement of the day. Who was sheafter all to imagine that such a strange and complex man like Makhayawould love her? She turned on the small girl and spoke to her with asharp note of exasperation in her voice.

“Now, why are you just sitting there?” she said. “Fetch theplates and I’ll dish up the porridge.”

The small girl looked at her startled. That tone of voice wasmost unlike her gay mother, but she sprang quickly and obediently toher feet, dropping a small ball of wool and some knitting she had beenbusy on. Paulina picked up the piece of knitting and could make noth-ing of the untidy jumble of stitches. She smiled to herself, and yet per-versely spoke in the same sharp tone to the child when she returnedwith the plates.

“What’s this?” she asked.“I am making a cap, Mama,” the little girl whispered.“You silly thing,” Paulina said, half-wanting to laugh. “Why

didn’t you ask me to help you? Are you keeping secrets? Is this cap fora boyfriend at school?”

“No, Mama,” the child said, a look of frightened guilt on herface. “The cap isn’t for my boyfriend. It’s for Isaac.”

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“So you keep boyfriends at school and tell me you’re makingthis cap for your brother at the cattle post,” Paulina persisted, oddlyenjoying torturing the child.

The small girl squirmed. She and her brother Isaac had alwayshad secrets between them that they did not care to share with adults.But how could she let her mother accuse her of having a boyfriend atschool?

“When we were at the cattle post the other day, Isaac asked meto make him a cap,” she whispered faintly. “He said he had a bad coldand was coughing every day.”

As she feared, this bit of whispered information seemed tomake her mother more cross than before because she fell into this sud-den, brooding silence and did not eat her porridge. Then she picked upthe knitting and bent towards the firelight and unravelled it. Then shepicked up the needles and, with quick rapid movements of her hands,began knitting the cap. The small girl kept her eyes glued on thishandwork, in fascination, watching a cap grow before her very eyesunder the click, click of the needles. After half an hour, Paulina pausedabruptly, broke off the thread of wool and spread the garment out onher knees. She looked considerately at her daughter.

“I’m sending this cap to Isaac tomorrow,” she said. “Also abottle of cough mixture. Now, you must keep this a secret. I’m going tosend a message that you made the cap for him.”

She peered closely at her daughter’s face, and the child lookeddown in embarrassment.

“But if he is ill, he needs the cap quickly,” the mother said,guilty of having spoiled the pleasure of her child.

To her surprise, the small girl burst into a flood of tears. Itwasn’t that Paulina did not feel like crying too. They were afflicted bythe same ailment – loneliness. But if a grown woman cried, all thosehot tears might melt the iron rod that was her backbone. Then howwould she arise on the morrow to face another day? The note of exas-peration crept back into her voice.

“Go to bed,” she said, crossly. “And I want no more noise.”

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Far away, at the cattle post, the small boy Isaac was alreadyasleep in his hut. The nights were bitterly cold, in these winter days,but for some time now he had fallen asleep in a hot, flushed daze, witha high fever. It wasn’t a bad cold that troubled him. He hadtuberculosis.

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Nine

The busy brown birds shrilled the day long in the bush, long con-tented shrills, punctuated by the rasping flutter of their wings asthey hopped from thorn tree to thorn tree. In fact, the whole

earth had this contented feeling because it was July. No one liked Juneand its icy blasts, nor the sandstorms and high winds of August andSeptember. And no one liked the summer months, when it might ormight not rain and when it was always too hot to live and breathe. ButJuly was like living at the bottom of a deep, blue ocean because it wasreally as though winter had settled a sheet of glassy blue light over theearth. You were never without the cloudless desert sky in Botswana,but in July the sunlight had to filter through a dense, blue cloth, andthis filtered light covered everything with a glossy, soft sheen. Mysteri-ous blue mists clung like low, still clouds, all day long, on the horizon,and at evening they trailed in cold draughts along the windingfootpaths.

Makhaya found his own kind of transformation in this enchant-ing world. It wasn’t a new freedom that he silently worked towards buta putting together of the scattered fragments of his life into a coherentand disciplined whole. Partly life in the bush was like this. In order tomake life endurable you had to quiet down everything inside you, andwhat you had in the end was a prison and you called this your life. Itwas almost too easy for Makhaya to slip into this new life. For onething he wanted it, and for another he had started on this road, twoyears previously in a South African prison, the end aim in mind beinga disciplined life. But the Botswana prison was so beautiful thatMakhaya was inclined to make a religion out of everything he found inGolema Mmidi. It did not amount to much. It even seemed as thoughthe population of goats exceeded that of people. They certainly pro-duced more babies than the women of Golema Mmidi who werechronically short of male companionship, and as though the mother

goats sensed this they paraded their babies up and down the village,the little ones trailing obediently behind them, nodding their small,tired heads. All the planning and projects Gilbert discussed with him,night after night, were on a very small scale and the smallness of it allwas to ensure its success. Gilbert felt that you could not plunge a com-munity that had lived off subsistence farming for generations intolarge-scale production overnight.

It was as though the concept of working with acres and acres ofland was incomprehensible to the majority of poverty-stricken people,who were content to scrape a living off a thin ribbon of earth. Therewasn’t much bother and fuss about subsistence living either. Largechunks of the year went by just watching the sunrise and sunset, andwho knew too if the subsistence man did not prefer it this way? It waseasy, almost comparable to the life of the idle rich, except that thepoor man starved the year round. Not in Africa had the outcry beenraised, but in the well-fed countries. Something had to be done aboutthe man who lived on subsistence agriculture, because without his co-operation the world could not be properly fed. Gilbert took this a littlefurther. Voice had to be raised in Africa too, and they had to comefrom men like Makhaya who deeply craved a better life, not only forthemselves but for all these thousands and thousands of people whowalked around with no shoes.

Maybe, some people would have been surprised and amused atMakhaya’s many private speculations on Gilbert and also the exagger-ated importance he attached to the personality of Gilbert. Maybe theywere accustomed to accepting and treating white people as ordinaryhuman beings, but for Makhaya this was a completely new experience.At first Makhaya thought it was the agriculture that made him feel soat ease and at peace in Gilbert’s company, but then the agriculture wassomething he grasped at to save his own life and there was still theman, Gilbert, who sat there talking and for whom Makhaya could notaccount. He had been accustomed to reacting in only one way to awhite man and that was with a feeling of great unease. Most southernAfricans reacted in this way, and few black men in their sane mind en-vied or cared to penetrate the barrier of icy no-man’s-land which was

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the white man and his world. The black man preferred to retreat to hisown world among all the garbage and filth and noise, where a lot ofpeople would be real and familiar and to whom your reactions wouldbe such as to fill you with a sudden flood of relaxed warmth. It justsurprised Makhaya that he had this feeling in the company of Gilbertall the time, and he would often sit and look at Gilbert with a slightlypuzzled expression on his face. In the end Makhaya reduced it all tohis one criterion for judging all of mankind – generosity, of soul and ofmind. Many experiences had led him to the belief that the peace of theworld rested with that one word. Because of this, it had become apolicy with him to give immediately whatever was asked of him, andhe really only felt a hatred towards people who consistently displayedselfish attitudes.

Makhaya’s other griefs were more difficult to resolve, as theseturned inward to his own life and his own need to attach a meaning toit. It was because his inner life had been a battleground of strife andconflict that made him attach such importance to its meaning. Therewas something in this inner friction that had propelled him, all byhimself, along a lonely road, and he could not help noticing its loneli-ness because everything he desired and needed seemed to be neededby no one else in his own environment, among his own people or clan.This was aggravated by the fact that he had been born into one of themost custom-bound and conservative of tribes in the whole Africancontinent, where half the men and women still walked around in skinsand beads, and even those who moved to the cities moved with theirtraditions too. There seemed to be ancient, ancestral lines drawnaround the African man which defined his loyalties, responsibilities,and even the duration of his smile. There was some woman he had tobuy at some stage, the way you bought a table you were going to keepin some back room and not care very much about. It was only once hisfather had died that he was able to come forward with his own strangeMakhaya smiles and originality of mind. It was a new young man whostood there, quiet and dignified, gentle and relaxed, but there wasnothing in his own environment to account for all the secret develop-ment that had taken place in him.

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Things wouldn’t have been so bad if black men as a whole hadnot accepted their oppression, and added to it with their own taboosand traditions. One he had pulled away from these taboos, he foundthe definition of a black man unacceptable to him. There were thingslike Baas and Master he would never call a white man, not even if theyshot him dead. But all black men did it. They did it. But why? Why notbe shot dead? Why not be shot dead rather than live the living death ofhumiliation? And this agony piled up on all sides in a torrential furybecause it was not just that one thing that was wrong, it was a thou-sand others as well.

He had seen it in the slums of all the cities of South Africawhere black men had to live and how a man walked out of his home tobuy a packet of cigarettes and never returned and how his seeminglysenseless murder gave a brief feeling of manhood to a man who hadnone. Thousands of men died this way to boost up the manhood of amanless man. But there were many other reasons why a man became amurderer, and at one stage Makhaya had acquired enough hatred tobecome a mass murderer. He lived on this touch-and-go line with hissanity, finding nothing to stabilize him. Of course, there was the gor-geous, exotic, exuberant round of the black man’s life – his prostitutes,his drink, his music, his warm happy laughter. Eventually he slippedinto this gay, happy round of living, but not before he had had a lookat the type of woman he was supposed to marry and have childrenwith.

Prostitutes, he was to decide, were the best type of womenyou’d find among all black women, unless a man wanted to be trappedfor life by a dead thing. A prostitute laughed. She established her ownkind of equality with men. She picked up a wide, vicarious experiencethat made her chatter in a lively way, and she was so used to the sexorgans of men that she was inclined to regard him as a bit more than asex organ. Not so the dead thing most men married. Someone toldthat dead thing that a man was only his sex organs and functioned assuch. Someone told her that she was inferior in every way to a man,and she had been inferior for so long that even if a door opened some-where, she could not wear this freedom gracefully. There was no

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balance between herself and a man. There was nothing but this quiet,contemptuous, know-all silence between herself, the man and hisfunctioning organs. And everyone called this married life, even thefilthy unwashed children, the filthy unwashed floors, and piles of un-washed dishes. Before all this Makhaya retreated, repelled. Yet hisother life was horrible too, and he would not have been able to main-tain it indefinitely without becoming a complete wreck. Perhaps hehad even subconsciously engineered his arrest at this time by care-lessly keeping the plans to blow up a power station in his pocket.

It was to amaze Makhaya after all this that an old woman in thevillage of Golema Mmidi, named Mma-Millipede, was to relieve hisheart of much of its ashes, frustration, and grief.

Mma-Millipede made the first move towards establishing afriendship with Makhaya, partly motivated by her liking for the quiet,reserved young man and partly through her involvement in the emo-tional life of her friend Paulina. One evening, as Makhaya sat at supperwith Maria, Gilbert, and the old man Dinorego, he was handed a littlenote by Dinorego. It said:

I would be very pleased if you could pay me a visit, myson. Everyone ignores an old woman like me, thereforeI am ever lonely. Your friend, Mma-Millipede.

It was a bit of an exaggeration on the part of Mma-Millipede, butMakhaya put the note in his pocket; and as soon as supper was over,he stood up, leaving Gilbert and the old man in the middle of a discus-sion about whether, in the end, subsistence farming would evolve intoco-operative farming. He liked this one theme of Gilbert’s, but he alsoliked the tone of the little note.

Mma-Millipede was a little surprised at the promptness withwhich Makhaya responded to her note, and quite a space lapsed beforeshe could collect her thoughts. She had, as usual, been indulging in herfavourite pastime – reading the Tswana version of the Bible, and onthis particular evening the wandering tribes of Israel were beingsettled by Joseph in the land of the Pharaoh.

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“…lo, here is seed for you,” Joseph was saying. “And ye shallsow the land. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shallgive the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, forseed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households,and for food for your little ones…”

These words deeply touched the heart of Mma-Millipede. Itwas her own world. It was Botswana. In her childhood a custom hadprevailed where one-fifth part of the harvest of the corn had been giv-en to the chief, and he had taken his one-fifth part of all the gifts and ithad been brewed into a beer from which all had sipped as a thanksgiv-ing for the harvest. But what had Pharaoh done with the gifts of thetribes of Israel? For they were lonely in Pharaoh’s land and Jacob, theancient father of Joseph, calls his son and says: “I pray thee, my son.Bury me not in Pharaoh’s land. Carry me out and bury me in the bury-ing place of my fathers…”

Mma-Millipede was about to weep at the loneliness and uneaseof the ancient Jacob. She saw and felt it all vividly but at this momentMakhaya knocked at the door, and his tall, thin shadow stepped aheadof him into the candlelit hut. His sensitive eye took in at one glance thelittle black Bible and the loneliness and grief of the old woman.

“Hullo, Mama,” he said with his quiet smile.The old woman stared up at him, confusing him with the image

of Joseph which was still in her mind.“I am surprised you visit an ugly old woman,” she said at last,

smiling too.“But you called me, sweetheart,” he teased back. “Besides, I’ve

visited many types of women but none have looked as lovely as you.”“Oh, this pleases my heart,” the old woman said, with quaint

dignity. “Who has ever called me sweetheart before? Will you havesome tea, my own sweetheart?”

She fussed about unnecessarily, and looked a little flustered asher heart was suddenly overcome with a sentimental liking forMakhaya, and sentiment was not really a part of Mma-Millipede’stemperament, at least it was buried deep down under all the harshrealities she had faced in her long life. Makhaya sat down opposite her

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and pulled the Tswana version of the Bible towards him as she pouredthe tea. He scarcely glanced at the words.

“Are you religious, Mama?” he asked lightly.Mma-Millipede looked at him with an alert glance. “If you

mean, am I good, I can right away say no, no, no,” she said. “Goodnessis impossible to achieve. I am searching for a faith, without which Icannot live.”

Makhaya kept quiet because he did not immediately grasp themeaning of this.

“What is faith, Mama?” he asked curiously.“It is an understanding of life,” she said gently.He looked at her for a moment and then placed one long black

arm on the table and pulled up the sweater sleeve which was the samepitch black colouring as the skin on his arm.

“Do you mean this too?” he asked, quietly. “Do you know who Iam? I am Makhaya, the Black Dog, and as such I am tossed about bylife. Life is only torture and torment to me and not something I care tounderstand.”

He might have said it was much more than torture and tor-ment, that it was an abysmal betrayal, a howling inferno where everygesture of love and respect was repaid with the vicious, snapping jawsof the inmates of this inferno until you were forced to build a thickwall of silence between yourself and the snapping jaws. But he wouldthrottle himself to death behind this wall because love was really awarm outflowing stream which could not be dammed up. The familiarpained expression crept over his face as he looked at the old woman.And the old woman knew this.

“What is a Black Dog?” she asked abruptly.Makhaya laughed his bitter, sarcastic laugh. “He is a sensa-

tion,” he said. “He awakens only thrills in the rest of mankind. He is achild they scold in a shrill voice because they think he will never growup. They don’t want him to, either, because they’ve grown too used tohis circus and his antics, and they liked the way he sat on the chair andshivered in fear while they lashed out with the whip. If Black Dog be-comes human they won’t have anyone to entertain them any more. Yet

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all the while they shrieked with laughter over his head, he slowly be-came a mad dog. Instead of becoming human, he has only become amad dog, and this makes them laugh louder than ever.”

Mma-Millipede looked down. The quietly spoken words carriedin them a violent torrent of hatred, and she was swept out of herdepth, uncertain if there was anything in her own life with which tocounter this hatred. The pitch black arm still lay across the table, like aquestion mark, and she was pitch black too, but she had lived all herlife inside this black skin with a quiet and unruffled dignity.

“You are not a Black Dog, my own sweetheart,” she said in des-pair. “I have never seen such a handsome man as you in my life before.You must not be fooled by those who think they are laughing. I don’tknow these people but my search for a faith has taught me that life is afire in which each burns until it is time to close the shop.”

She looked up at Makhaya and he stared back at her aloofly.With that aloof stare he was trying to force something out of the oldwoman as he began to feel the real hard depth at the centre of her life.Mma-Millipede wavered. She had wanted to chat with him about littlethings; how he liked his work and whether he wanted a woman. Butnow all her feelers had to concentrate themselves on this frighteningdepth of hatred he had revealed in himself. He smiled suddenly, quiteclearly observing the uncertainty on her face.

“Maybe you are right, Mama,” he said. “Maybe I blame thewhole world for my own private troubles. Maybe it’s just a hollow feel-ing inside that’s driving me mad.”

He pointed to the direction of his heart. “There is a hollow feel-ing here,” he continued. “Some time ago I used to pour all the drink inthe world into it to try and fill it up. I was dissatisfied with myself.That’s what hollow inside means.”

“My own sweetheart,” she said, tenderly. “The hollow feelinginside is a search for a faith because that is what a person cannot livewithout.”

“Can you look on life again with trust once it has become soiledand tainted?” he asked.

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The old woman looked at his face. Perhaps he did not know itbut the unconscious expression of his face was one of innocence andtrust. How was it possible for him to have looked on evil and yet tohave retained that expression?

“You are a good man, my son,” she said with firm assertiveness.“What makes you see good in everything?” he asked, amused.“It is because of the great burden of life,” she said quietly. “You

must learn only one thing. You must never, never put anyone awayfrom you as not being your brother. Because of this great burden, noone can be put away from you.”

It was the first, of all that she had said, that immediatelytouched the depth of his own life. Makhaya understood anything thatappealed to his generosity because, in the depths of him, he was a lov-er of his fellow men. Yet the savagery and greed of these fellow menhad set him to flight. At the same time the experiences of all forms oftwisted, perverted viciousness had knocked out of him most of theseevils. The problem was to control this desire for flight for, in turn, itbecame an act of hatred against all mankind.

“Who is my brother, Mama?” he asked.“It is each person who is alive on the earth,” she said.He smiled, having half-expected that reply from the old wo-

man, and he had a perverse desire to push the Tswana version of theBible off the table. The woman had a fire inside her that radiated out-ward and he could feel it and it warmed him. He didn’t like that littleblack book because it really meant damn-all to a black man like him.Too many mincing, squeamish little missionaries had danced aroundit, and if God was to mean anything to a Black Dog he just had to havethe humility to put on the skin of the Black Dog. He just had to goaround being black in Africa if, from now on, he wanted anyone tocare about him. But Makhaya cared not two hells about an old man inthe sky. He liked this direct people-caring and this warm fire in an oldwoman. He sat up a little because he wanted to jolt her a bit. Hewanted to find out what the base was, if it was real or only an illusion.

“I don’t think I understand you,” he said. “I don’t think I acceptthe other man as my brother. You know what’s going on in Golema

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Mmidi? Well, the same thing is going on wherever there are poorpeople. Chief Matenge is one lout, cheat, dog, swine. But Matengeseverywhere get themselves into a position over the poor. I hate theswine. Sometimes I don’t know what I feel about the poor, except thatI, being poor too, say I’ve had enough of swines. I say I’ve had enoughof those tin gods called white men, too. I want to see them blow up butI’ve run away, not because they are my brothers, but because a crowdis going to do the blowing up. I don’t like crowds. I’d like to kill if I hadto but I’m not sure what I’m killing when I’m in a crowd. I’m not sureof anything any more, least of all who my brother is.”

Mma-Millipede searched her mind in vain. There was a judg-ment day when the sheep would be separated from the goats, withoutMakhaya’s help, and she was searching around in her mind for a wayto inform him of this without having to refer to the Bible. It wassomething people liked or did not like and she knew this wild-heartedman did not like it. She knew missionaries too and they had taintedthe Bible by not making the words they preached out of it match theirdeeds.

“Maybe I don’t see life in a big way,” she said apologetically.“But people who err against human life like our chief and the whiteman do so only because they are more blind than others to the mysteryof life. Some time life will catch up with them and put them away forgood or change them. It’s not the white man who makes life but adeeper mystery over which he has no control. Whether good or bad,each man is helpless before life. This struck my heart with pity. Since Isee all this with my own eyes, I could not add to the burden by causingsorrow to others. I could only help. That is why I cannot put anyoneaway from me as not being my brother.”

Makhaya smiled wryly. He had not heard anything like this be-fore, and he hadn’t expected to hear it from an old woman in the Bot-swana bush. He hadn’t expected anyone to tell him that generosity ofmind and soul was real, and Mma-Millipede sustained this preciousquality at a pitch too intense for him to endure. He could give up al-most anything, and hatred might fall away from him like old scabs, buthe would never stop putting people away from him. He would never

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let them rampage through his soul because, unlike Mma-Millipede, hehad no God to clear up the rubble. He had only his own self, Makhaya,Black Dog, and that was all he trusted not to let him down. He stoodup soon after that, with all Mma-Millipede’s treasures in his pocket.He was never to know how to thank her for confirming his view thateverything in life depended on generosity. The relationship betweenthem from then on was to be one of continuous give and take, and whotook and who gave and when and how was never counted up. StillMma-Millipede was strangely disturbed that evening. It had been oneof the most exacting conversations of her life, especially as herthoughts on life, on understanding were always hesitant, tentative. Yeton this evening she had spoken with calm authority on truths she wasunaware of having thought deeply about. Partly it was the strangenessof the person she had spoken to which had so shaken her. She hadbeen unprepared for the violent intensity of hatred and turmoil behindthe quiet, still, carved face, and partly too it was the abrupt way inwhich she had been brought too close to another human life for thefirst time in her life. He had sat there, seemingly aloof and alone, yet atthe same time, he had caught hold of an invisible thread of her life andattached it to his own. This togetherness dissolved all the loneliness inthe world, and it had given Mma-Millipede the confidence to utterwords she would never have dreamt of in the ordinary way. Mma-Mil-lipede was left with the feeling that a rich treasure had entered her life.She sat there for a long while with her hand on her cheek, ponderingthese things.

Why did he call himself Black Dog and then give her such a ter-rifying picture of what a Black Dog was, she puzzled. How could ayoung man who had awakened such a quiet affection in her heart behimself so tormented and broken? But how could Mma-Millipede un-derstand all things? Apart from one or two missionaries and Gilbert,she had never known white people. She had never had to live with atwisted perverted mentality which pinned up little notices over awhole town that said: This town is for white people only. Black Dogsmay only enter through the back door because they are our servantsand we are God, permanently, perpetually. We are this way because

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we have white skins, like peaches and cream. We don’t smell like BlackDogs do and we are also very clever. We invented machinery. We, we,we.

It was hard to be charitable towards a civilization like this. Itwas hard to sit back and contemplate the real wonder of the whiteman’s world which was this civilization. As Makhaya walked back tothe farm in the pitch dark night he was even sorry that he had oncemore aroused his own deep and bitter hatred. For he hated the whiteman in a strange way. It was not anything subtle or sly or mean, but apowerful accumulation of years and years and centuries and centuriesof silence. It was as though, in all this silence, black men had not livednor allowed themselves an expression of feeling. But they had watchedtheir lives overrun and everything taken away. They were likeFrankenstein monsters, only animated by the white man for his ownneeds. Otherwise they had no life apart from being servants andslaves. The strain was too much to bear any longer, not when a manwas under pressure to assert his own manhood. He wanted them togive way on the continent of Africa, for they understood everything ex-cept the life inside a man. If this were not so they would have acceptedthe fact that black men were human too and not some strange animalthey tarred and feathered and hung up from a tree to die. He wantedthem to give way on a continent where nearly everyone wore no shoesand where poverty was not a shameful sin to be hidden under thebushes. More than that he wanted them to remove their guns which atthis present time in southern Africa were pointed at millions and mil-lions of unarmed people. They must know what would happen one dayin southern Africa. They must know, somewhere deep down, that oneday all those millions of unarmed people would pitch themselves bod-ily on the bullets, if that was the only way of ridding themselves of anoppressor.

The whole world knew this. There was this curious philosophy.“Violence breeds hatred and hatred breeds violence. Hatred can

only be defeated by love and peace.”But had Hitler been defeated by love and peace? Six million

Jews had quietly died before Jewish people earned the right to live on

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this earth. Had six million Africans to die in southern Africa beforeblack men earned a dignity too? The philosophy of love and peacestrangely overlooked who was in possession of the guns. There hadbeen love and peace for some time on the continent of Africa becausefor all this time black men had been captivated by the doctrines ofChristianity. It took them centuries to realize its contradictions, andMma-Millipede’s generation was the last of the captivated generations.The contradictions were apparent to Makhaya, and perhaps there wasno greater crime as yet than all the lies Western civilization had told inthe name of Jesus Christ. It seemed to Makhaya far preferable forAfrica if it did without Christianity and Christian double-talk, fatpriests, golden images, and looked around at all the thin naked oldmen who sat under trees weaving baskets with shaking hands. Peoplecould do without religions and Gods who died for the sins of the worldand thereby left men without any feeling of self-responsibility for thecrimes they committed. This seemed to Makhaya the greatest irony ofChristianity. It meant that a white man could forever go on slaughter-ing black men simply because Jesus Christ would save him from hissins. Africa could do without a religion like that.

This was the sum total of Makhaya’s revolt, and if he regrettedhaving aroused all the tortures which were slowly falling away fromhim in Golema Mmidi, it was because they disrupted his feeling offriendship and respect towards Gilbert and all the new mental out-looks he was assuming. It was only through Gilbert that he discoveredin himself a compassion for the whole great drama of human history.Only Gilbert admitted the mutual interdependence of all men. The rawmaterials of all the underdogs had gone into the making of those aero-planes and motor cars, and Gilbert had been surprised to find the un-derdogs living in such abysmal conditions while his own country hadprospered to an almost unbelievable state of wealth. There was no wayfor him to grasp such poverty, except to live under the same conditionsas the poor. Makhaya formed his own conclusions from this. He sawGilbert’s culture as one that had catalogued every single detail onearth with curiosity, and it revealed to him great gaping holes in hisown culture and how impossible it would be for Africans to stand

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alone. His own culture lacked, almost entirely, this love and care forthe earth and had all its interest directed towards people. He hadgrown up in an atmosphere where the most important thing in theworld was the stranger whose shadow darkened the doorstep. Peoplewere the central part of the universe of Africa, and the world stood stillbecause of this. Makhaya deviated slightly from this pattern as he wasborn with a natural inclination for his own company. Thus, Gilbert’sscientific outlook was a welcome alternative to him.

He felt, too, that all the tensions, jealousies, frustrations, andendless petty bickering which make up the sum total of all human re-lationships were in reality unnecessary. This belief was necessary tohis own survival, as the desire to retaliate in a violent way against allhuman selfishness and greed was a powerful urge in him. He foundhimself, over this period, beginning to combine the two – the good inGilbert with the good in his own society. Perhaps he did so because heneeded to save himself. Some part of him was even fearful that he wasbeing mocked by the gods, and that one day he would find himselfpitched back into the nightmare over which he had had no control,just as he had had no control over the living processes which had cre-ated him, Makhaya, a man with a black skin, which in turn made menwith differently coloured skins jar the quiet and peace of his being andallow him no peace, night or day, to live with a natural part of hisbody. He suspected that Botswana society had its own merry-go-round, as he had seen from the behaviour and attitudes of Matengeand Joas Tsepe, but he did not have a stake in Botswana society. Hedid not want a stake in any man’s society, and that’s why Gilbert andhis ideas appealed to him so deeply.

What else could a man do, except seek a manageable life? Whatelse could he, Makhaya, do, except wait here a bit until he lost hishate? It was he, Makhaya, the individual, who was seeking his own liv-ing life because he was fearful of the living death a man could be borninto. In the meanwhile it seemed to him, for his own private needs,that he should free himself of hatred and concentrate his mind on thedetails of life in Golema Mmidi.

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This life was indeed a full one and, for a beginning, a verypleasant and manageable one. Two weeks after the first tobacco curingand drying shed had been built, one hundred and fifty women joinedthe tobacco growing project. This meant that a number of sheds couldbe built, simultaneously, on one day, as the women were now organ-ized by Paulina Sebeso into small working groups. They were able tocopy the pattern of the first shed with ease, and if Makhaya’s blueoveralled person was all about the village, it was to help with the con-struction of the drying racks, which were a complicated affair workedon a collapsible pulley system. The old man Dinorego joined Makhayain his work. After a few days, Makhaya left this job completely to theold man and started work on small dams which were to be a source ofextra water supply. It was too risky to depend on rainfall alone to givethe tobacco project a good start, Gilbert reasoned. Who knew when thedrought would break, and already the one farm borehole was heavilystrained with having to supply the whole village with good drinkingwater, plus sustaining the cattle in the ranch.

The dams were to be built on each homestead and they were forthe purpose of trapping whatever storm water might rush along theground during the brief rainy season. They were to be pits, blasted outwith dynamite, to a depth of seven feet and a width of fifteen feet byfifteen feet. Their capacity would be eight thousand gallons of stormwater. The bottom of these pits had to be lined with three layers ofmud and polythene and the sides to be supported with sandy,concrete-filled plastic bags. In each case a deep furrow was to be dugto catch the runoff storm water and lead it into the dam. Again, thematerials were simple and the costs kept low. The polythene was to beon the farm account until expenses could be deducted from the co-op-erative sale of the tobacco. Dynamite was commonly used to blast outpit toilets, as water-flush cisterns were almost unknown in this water-less country.

So, almost the day long, Golema Mmidi rocked to the blast ofdynamite charges, and huge quantities of earth and rock were hurledhigh in the air. Makhaya, who buried and set off the charges, was oftennear enough to be splattered by rock and earth. He liked the drama

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and the irony, for not so very long ago he had come out of jail forwanting to use this very dynamite against the enemies of human dig-nity. It was like a self-mockery, this splattering rock and earth, to real-ize that he was indeed powerless to change an evil and that there weremillions and millions of men built differently from him who enjoyedinflicting misery and degradation on a helpless and enslaved people.By contrast, Golema Mmidi seemed a dream he had evoked out of hisown consciousness to help him live, to help make life tolerable. But ifit was a dream, it was a merciful one, where women walked around allday with their bare feet and there were no notices up saying black mencould not listen to the twitter and chatter of birds. The small brownspeckled-breasted birds who lived in such huge colonies in Botswanawere fat, gorged things. Dinorego solved the mystery, for him, of theireating habits. He took Makhaya a little way into the bush and brokeopen the surface of the earth. It crawled, just under the surface, withthe soft juicy bodies of white ants, and thousands of birds lived onthese juicy morsels the day long.

So many of the barefoot women, too, competed to do him alittle favour. He never had to worry about where a cup of tea, whichsmelled like wood smoke, would come from, or what he would eat forthe next meal. It was always there, brought by a rush of eager hands.Paulina Sebeso had to stand back and watch this jealously, but no oth-er woman felt jealous as he shared out his attention among them allequally and then stood up at the end of the day and went his own way.Dinorego was very impressed by Makhaya’s relationship with the wo-men. It seemed to him that Makhaya was well versed in ancient Afric-an customs where the man maintaned his dignity and self-control infront of women, except that in former times this man had maintainedit over a harem of concubines, while Makhaya had none.

Mma-Millipede, of course, shared every secret with her friendDinorego, and since Paulina Sebeso was like their own flesh and blood,being also a northerner, they were both anxious that she obtain forherself this young man whom they both loved. Nor could Dinorego failto notice how Paulina trailed silently behind them each evening ontheir homeward journey and that every recognition of her existence by

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Makhaya filled her big black eyes with the shining look of rain fallingon wet leaves. Not that Makhaya failed to notice it either, after sometime. His first reaction was one of helpless surprise, because, in spiteof his good looks, he was quite unaccustomed to being adored by a wo-man in a single-minded way. That is, adoration was patient and wait-ing while love or, if you liked, plain sexual passion banged everythingabout. It either shouted or thought it knew too much, and it had al-ways left him cold and had not involved his heart. Therefore, if hewanted to get involved now it would be on his own terms and at hisown pace. He ignored Paulina Sebeso as carefully as he ignored all thewomen, but he also sat in her yard and drank wood smoke tea untilthe stars came out. Then he would stand up and say, abruptly, “Well,I’ll be going now.”

But Paulina Sebeso had a very pretty little girl who walked likea wind-blown leaf, and Makhaya was in a mood just then to like a littlegirl like that. He turned up one Saturday afternoon with a box inwhich he had thin strips of rubber, packing straw, glue, and greenpaint, and together he and the child set out to make grass for her mini-ature village. They worked the whole afternoon on this in absorbed si-lence, like two children of the same age who took life very seriously.Paulina worked nearby in silence too. Like all the other women whowere now working daily on the sheds and dams, she had to stamplarge quantities of sorghum for a week’s supply of porridge. Now, allover the village the sound could be heard of wooden pestles beingpounded into wooden stamping blocks. Every three minutes or soPaulina paused and poured a minute quantity of water into the stamp-ing block to soften the hard orange and pink corn seeds. This in turnmade the crushed, powdery corn quite damp, and once she had win-nowed away the husks, she had to spread out the corn meal on sacksto dry. She was so preoccupied that it was some time before she no-ticed Makhaya standing nearby, observing her. It upset the accuracywith which she hurled the pestle into the stamping block, and shelooked up at him in exasperation, wanting him to go away.

“I want some tea,” he said by way of explanation. “But I’ll lightthe fire and make it.”

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“Goodness!” she said in alarm, holding onto the thick woodenstick. “Don’t touch the fire. It’s a woman’s work.”

Makhaya narrowed his eyes, that amused magical smile on hisface. “Goodness!” he said, imitating her speech. “It’s time you learnedthat men live on this earth too. If I want to make tea, I’ll make it, and ifI want to sweep the floor, I’ll sweep it.”

Paulina shook her head and continued stamping. Makhayaturned the world upside down every day. He issued orders no onecould counter, and he issued them with a smile that begged for an ex-cuse for being the sole controller of everyone’s life and the stars andthe moon too.

“Quiet men are dangerous,” she said to herself with a smile.But they filled the world with peace, these quiet men.

Everything ran on smooth wheels with a mathematical order and pre-cision. The child sat near her village, carefully painting the grass greenwhile the man, with equal care, scraped out the old ash with a flat stickand set a fresh, crumpled paper on the outdoor fireplace. Paulinawatched the fire-making with a critical eye, and it occurred to her forthe first time why the ancestors had set certain jobs aside for womenand certain jobs for men. Men and women were unalike mentally.Look at how this man built a fire! He treated each stick as a separateliving entity, and because of his respect for each stick, he moved hishands slowly, with many pauses, placing the firewood down at care-fully calculated angles. This fire was set for a limited purpose. It wasmeant to boil water for tea and burn beautifully, without smoke, in astraight blue flame. A woman worked differently. She grasped a bunchof sticks in her hand, but it wasn’t the fire only but a thousand otherpurposes that fire would serve. At one moment it had to burn brightlybut the next the flames had to be pulled apart and simmer the pot ofmeat. A fire was only a rag bag to a woman, and because of this shethrew the firewood on the flames in haphazard confusion. In protest,the fire smoked like mad and food and tea and wood smoke all gotmixed up together. But would people ever eat and stay alive if house-work was so precise and calculated like this bright, smokeless, quick-burning fire?

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From habit, she dropped the wooden pestle and rushed to-wards one of the huts. She would catch the last of the flames and messthem up with a clutter of wood and set the porridge pot over thissmoke haze for the evening meal. Jarred by this sudden, frantic activ-ity, the mathematical fire-maker and tea-maker retreated with a pro-found look of annoyance on his face. He could not even bear to look atthe way Paulina sloshed the tea into the teacups. He walked towardsthe thornbush hedge and stood with his hands in his pockets, lookingtowards the horizon.

But the look of annoyance was soon banished because the sunwas about to drop behind the flat horizon. It was just a big yellow balland the air danced with sparkling crystals. The faint blue mistsshivered like homeless dogs and slyly crept into the hedged yard for abit of warmth.

“Here’s your tea, my friend,” the woman said, approachinghim.

“Thank you,” Makhaya said, politely, ever careful to keep him-self the homeless foreign alien.

“You must not say ‘thank you’ once you are used to a person,”the woman said.

“It depends on whether the person is used to me,” he said. “Areyou?”

She looked at him, half-laughing, half-puzzled. He always con-fused her with the speed with which he replied to careless, thoughtlessremarks and the way he had of taking conversations up and down hillsand valleys and mountains.

“I should be afraid to say I am used to a person like you,” shesaid.

The answer pleased him and he turned again to the sunset. Hewanted no one to be as rash as to say they understood his soul, espe-cially when he had put up so many ‘no trespass’ signs. He wantedeveryone as the background to his thoughts, not through arrogance,but that this emotional detachment was essential to real love and re-spect. The distances also revealed to him his true relationship to bothfriend and foe, and in the end both friends and foes might be

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acceptable if they always lived on the other side of the hill. But withinall this, as Mma-Millipede had discovered, he employed a number ofundercover tricks to bring him close enough to those whose warmthand love he craved. Ah, but happiness, anyway, was dirt cheap in Bot-swana. It was standing still, almost in the middle of nowhere, and hav-ing your face coloured up gold by the setting sun. He heard the smallgirl approach behind him and sit down next to her mother to sip tea.He had found out from her that she also had a brother, a few yearsolder than she was.

Without turning around he asked, “Where’s the boy?”“He’s at the cattle post, looking after the cattle,” Paulina said.“You ought to employ someone older who does not need an

education,” he said.She kept quiet. Wages were a problem. An employed person

had to be paid a monthly salary, and she barely earned thirty pounds ayear from the sale of her cattle. Cattle were all that stood between herchildren and herself and outright starvation, and she had to keep thecosts down. Makhaya turned round and looked at her. He was onlythinking about the small boy. If an old man like Dinorego had foundthe cattle business such a harsh life, how much more terrible must itbe for a young boy. Paulina looked down.

“I know the child must attend school,” she said. “But I cannotafford to employ somebody.”

“How many cattle do you have,” he asked.“Eighty,” she said.He was silent for a moment, making a swift mental calculation.

“You must sell the damn beasts,” he said.She looked up, shocked. A Motswana without any cattle at all

might as well be dead. “I cannot do that,” she said.“But you will have nine hundred pounds in the bank,” he said,

“it’s enough money to live on for four or five years, and the boy will befree to attend school.”

The idea of selling all the cattle was totally unacceptable to her.She could not see beyond cattle to anything else which would offer hera haven of security. If her husband had been alive, the boy would most

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certainly be at school. She compressed her lips and looked at Makhayawith hard, realistic eyes.

“Why do you care?” she said roughly. “You are no relative ofmine.”

He laughed because he was unsure if her remark meant he wassomeone out to swindle her.

“We’ll talk about relatives some other day,” he said, “I’m nowtalking about those damn beasts who are more of a burden than a helpto you. I’ve said, after you’ve sold the burden, you will know what youare eating for four or five years. That’s time enough to look around andfind another way of earning a living. I’ll help you because I’m inter-ested in the same thing.”

She was unconvinced. “Why do you want to help me?” sheasked. “Why don’t you go and get rich by yourself. Each man helpshimself in this world.”

He looked at her exasperated, “I’m not really necessary to any-one, least of all to Gilbert,” he said, “I can feel myself leaving thiscountry, perhaps even tomorrow. But if you think you need my help,I’ll stay and help you.”

“Perhaps you had better go away,” she said in a shaken voice.She could not follow the strange twists and turns of his mind,

and this filled her with a bitter, furious despair. No one could acceptanything they could not understand. Besides, when had anyone helpedanother, free of charge? It wasn’t a custom. She looked up at him ap-prehensively. If he really believed her and went away, she would die.He returned her look with a look of speculative calculation. There wereother ways of saying what he had to say, but he was forcing friendshipand understanding on her because he needed this in a woman morethan he needed anything else. He walked across the short space thatseparated them and sat near her on the jutting mud foundation of thehut.

“You don’t understand, Paulie,” he said. “Poor people are poorbecause they don’t know how to get rich. I also live in this small darkroom and I have counted the change over and over. Now, I’m tired ofcounting the change. I’m going to be a millionaire. But poverty is like

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glue. All poor people stick on me and they have to become millionaireswith me. By this I mean that there will be no poverty left in Africa bythe time I die.”

He sat there in silence. There was much more he wanted to say.There was space enough in her country for the poor to become rich,and the evil that men do to each other was not to be found in such ma-jor proportions here. He could feel it and this was at the base of hisnew feeling of hope and peace. She sat in silence too, while her mindworked in that one-track feminine way. There was a point at whichlove reached the over-limit stage and then levelled itself out into a stillplateau. It was like a nightmare and it was lonely. Yet he kept onadding and adding to the nightmare with his gentle, persuasivespeeches.

“Tell me how you will help me to get rich,” she said at last.Makhaya looked at her in surprise. Millionaire-hood was not a

practical reality to him but a strange subconscious process. Therewould be a day when he would hold out his hand and all the money inthe world would fall into it. This he was sure of because his whole lifewas strained to that point, and he simply left it to his subconsious todo the building, brick by brick. One day, the whole superstructurewould be there, glittering with gold walls. Why, he had spent a lifetimeabsorbing all the tenderness, sorrow, and fear of the world, and therewas a web and design in it. He smiled at her.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Except that sometimes, I think I amGod. I don’t see why God, who owns the whole earth and heaven,should starve. He’ll use his brains, won’t he?”

Paulina hid her face in her hands and laughed. But the nextmoment she sat up with a jolt. The fire was slowly dying away with noone to attend to it. She jumped up and rushed over with outstretchedhands to catch the last, flickering flames and thrust them back vigor-ously into life again. The thick porridge was done. There was only thegoat meat to boil in the weak curry-powder gravy.

She looked over her shoulder at Makhaya mischievously andsaid, “Will you eat food in my house, God?”

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Ten

Matenge came back to Golema Mmidi in mid-August and foundhimself faced with the progress of mankind. Commoners wereup and about everywhere, busy like ants, building dams for

themselves. They were also laughing and had some new language uptheir sleeve, like ‘cash-crops’. This sent Matenge into a fuming rage.Barely ten years ago the commoner had always to approach a chief orsub-chief and ask him for permission to progress. This desire for pro-gress had usually taken the form of wanting to build a small brickhouse with a tin roof. But brick houses were for chiefs alone, and howcould an ordinary commoner want to bring himself up to the level of achief? Or again, he might desire to set up a borehole for watering hiscattle. The chief could say yes or no. If in some demented mood hesaid yes and then the commoner prospered, it would not be for long.This unfortunate man would one day be notified by the chief that aroad was to be built in the pathway of his borehole. Would the com-moner please quit? And not so many months after that the chief ac-quired a new watering place for his cattle.

Although he did not know it, Matenge was a thoroughlycornered rat, partly because his brother was playing football with him,and partly because he was faced with an entirely new situation inGolema Mmidi. There were too many independent-minded peoplethere, and tragedies of life had liberated them from the environmentalcontrol of the tribe. Never before had people been allowed to settlepermanently on the land as they were doing in Golema Mmidi. In thenot so very far back bad old days, those who desired to be permanentfarmers had had their huts burned down and been driven pack to thevillages. So the cheerful Paramount Chief Sekoto, who casually brokethe rules and needed to possess no man’s soul, was perhaps an uncon-scious assistant of the progress of mankind. But all things are unpre-dictable under the social structure of African tribalism. It seems to

hold within itself terrible and secret currents which are geared towardeternal enmity of the individuals who stand alone; and who knew ifone day Chief Sekoto might not turn demented too and unleash abombshell of destruction on Golema Mmidi.

Matenge’s crises were always silently prepared. No one everknew what was going on in that lonely mountain-top which was hissoul. The village was just presented with his thunderstorms, and theirfierceness and savage intensity were the outcome of months of brood-ing. But he was ailing these days and it took him longer than usual tofind his new victim. His dizzy spells alarmed him and he spent manyhours quietly relaxing on his porch in his royal purple dressing gown,while he kept his servants dancing up and down in attendance to hisneeds. Being only servants and anxious to please him, they also kepthim informed of all the developments in the village. The name ofPaulina Sebeso was frequently mentioned by the servants.

Yet, at this time, a far greater crisis than any Matenge couldever produce was to strike down on the village of Golema Mmidi andthe country as a whole. It all began so quietly. The weather was theusual for this time of the year; that is, from mid-August to mid-September the country was suddenly and abruptly plunged into themost intense and stifling heat. Scorching winds, too, blew in from thewest, bringing with them huge swirling columns of red desert dust. Allthis misery was welcomed. The intense heat precipitated the first sum-mer downpour. The old people and cattlemen knew this, and they re-mained contented in the swirling dust and heat. They never had anycalendars but when they looked towards the sky, they knew it wasSeptember, the month when the rain clouds gathered. No matter thatthis was a country of two years of good rain and seven years ofdrought, the rain clouds always gathered in September.

But September came around and no rain clouds gathered in thesky. At the cattle posts, far out in the bush, the spade-dug wells weredrying up, but still the cattlemen were not unduly worried. The huge,hulking, cavernous-bodied, russet brown Tswana cow was a strangebeast. No one seems to know of its origin, but everyone knew of its ad-aptation to the hazards of local climatic conditions and of its ability to

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go for long periods without food or water. Man and beast had alwayslived this way. If there was no food or water for a man, then there wasnothing for his cattle either. Both were as close to each other asbreathing, and it had never been regarded as strange that a man andhis cattle lived the same life. No doubt the cattlemen who lived in thelonely, isolated cattle posts at first stared in disbelief when they cattlebegan dropping dead before their very eyes. There were alwaysdroughts. There had been many in each man’s lifetime, but never inthe memory of man had the cattle dropped dead. By the time the menpanicked, hundreds and thousands of cattle had died.

The truth was no one knew what to do, and the authorities, whoby this time were becoming aware of the extent of the tragedy that wastaking place in the bush, had no way of establishing communicationwith the thousands of men at the isolated, unmapped cattle stations.Eventually, all the cattlemen were to be driven out of the bush, over-come by thirst, each trailing behind a few emaciated beasts. But theywere a reasoning steady crowd, these cattlemen. They moved slowlyand thought slowly, often with a quiet humour. It was reasonable tothem that the vultures should gather above a man’s cattle post, forwho could bury all these cattle which were dying daily? They watchedin calm apprehension as one beast after another toppled dead to theground. This was reasonable too. When had the dry season everspanned ten long months? The rain of the previous year had all fallenin November. There had been a day in November when the sky hademptied itself in one long angry downpour. Then all the rain had fledaway. But the lack of rain had not troubled the cattlemen. They hadtheir wells along silted-up river beds where the water flowed under-ground all year round. True enough, the grazing had been burnedbone dry by the hot January sun, but they had an ancient belief thatbone dry grazing was better for their cattle than fresh, green grass, wetwith dew. Now, nodding their heads they slowly absorbed a new truth:if cattle ate bone dry grass for ten months, a day would arrive when allcattle would drop down dead.

Once they reached this point in their reasoning, all the cattle-men picked up their long sticks and began driving what was left of

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their herds back to the villages to arrive there with ghastly tales of howthe bush was one big graveyard. But the vultures are feasting, they ad-ded humorously.

The first wave of cattlemen who had exhausted their reasoningpowers arrived in the village of Golema Mmidi in the late afternoon.They hastily erected kraals for their cattle with thorn-bush and in-structed their wives to water the cattle sparingly. Then they retired tothe yard of one of their fellows, and all sat in a circle on wooden stools,silently drinking bowls of sour milk porridge. Disaster had indeedstruck down swiftly on their small world, and each man sat in a moun-tain of aloof reserve to prevent his fellow from starting the sorrowfultale:

“My friend, I had two hundred cattle just yesterday. Out of this,one hundred and twenty have died. I have just counted the beasts. Inow have eighty.”

They had seen the bush strewn with dead cattle on their wayhome. No one had stopped to look behind at the weak cows who hadlain down to calve and die in the process of giving birth. The onethought in each man’s mind had been to hasten home, even if he onlyhad one beast left. Cattlemen could talk about this with humour andresignation to any other person but one of their fellows. It was notlong before this group of silent men was joined by that super reasoner,Dinorego. He came into the yard with his cheerful shuffle, holding onto the remnants of his tattered coat. The men moved aside immedi-ately. They respected and trusted no one more deeply than Dinorego.Once the old man had seated himself, the owner of the yard, a tall, ta-citurn man named Rankoane, threw the stiff, cried-up carcass of asmall wild buck into the circle of men.

“Look what I found, my friend,” Rankoane said. “It’s not onlythe cattle which are dying.”

The big dark eyes of the little animal were wide open, and helay on his side with his four delicate legs stretched out stiffly, just theway the cattle lay when they dropped down dead. The men stared at itin fascination, really seeing death for the first time – they could notbear to look on their cattle in this posture of death. Rankoane enjoyed

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this effect. He enjoyed the contemplation of death and was one of thefew men who could stare at it boldly. He bent down and removed thecarcass and threw it to one side. Dinorego nodded his head severaltimes, profoundly.

“We have received this news some days ago,” he said. “Thenews came by phone to my son, Gilbert. It was the police officer,George Appleby-Smith, who phoned. He said, ‘Gilbert, do you know ofthe way cattle and wild beasts are dying in the bush?’ And Gilbert said,‘I am not surprised. Look at how it rained last year, all on one day inNovember.’ I was present when this phone call came, and my son Gil-bert put down the phone, struck with pity. My heart too was struckwith pity. I said, ‘The Good Lord has prevented me from keepingsomething which dies.’”

The men looked at Dinorego with deep interest. The mention ofthe name of Gilbert had suddenly filled their hearts with hope, wherebefore had been a passive resignation. No one had any clear idea ofwhy he had headed home except that it seemed the most reasonablething to do. But they were all members of the cattle cooperative andgrearly prided themselves on having joined this new and strange asso-ciation. Perhaps Gilbert, who had new ideas each day, would tell themwhat to do with all the cattle they could no longer feed.

“What has Gilbert to say about the deaths?” one of the menprompted tentatively.

Dinorego looked at the men triumphantly. “The rain has notcome,” he said. “But still we will plough. Come, let us go and seeGilbert.”

With one abrupt gesture, the men put down their porridgebowls and stood up. Rankoane’s wife, who was watering the cattlenearby, looked at them in amazement. They looked like men about togo into battle, so stern and concentrated were their expressions. Justas they were about to leave the yard, Paulina Sebeso approached them.She clasped her hands politely together in greeting but she was wildwith anxiety. She fixed her eyes on Rankoane.

“Please spare a moment, Rra Rankoane,” she said. “I want toask you something.”

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Rankoane detached himself from the group and walked to-wards her with his angry-looking expression. Rankoane was alwaysrude and offhand to women.

“What is it?” he asked impatiently.“Your cattle post is near mine,” Paulina said. “Why didn’t you

persuade my son to come home with you? What’s the good of himstaying in the bush when there is no water and the cattle are dying?”

A queer, guarded look crept into Rankoane’s eyes. “So, your sonhas not come home, Paulina Sebeso?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t understand you, Rankoane,” she said, wildly. “What areyou saying?”

The man shrugged. He had more than enough troubles to bear.His whole livelihood had almost vanished before his very eyes.

“I told your son to go home two weeks ago,” he said. “I expectedhim to be here, that’s why I did not stop at your cattle post today.”

He walked away to join the group of men, but then he turnedround once and looked back at Paulina with a twisted expression ofpain on his face. At the same time he was trying to escape responsibil-ity by not telling the woman why he had ordered her son home twoweeks previously. It must have been just about this time too, after hehad brought the cattle back to the kraal for the night, that Paulina’sson had come to him.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Uncle,” the boy had said.“I am coughing up blood every day.”

But Rankoane knew at one glance what was wrong. Tuberculos-is was the one major killer in the country, and the small boy with hisred feverish eyes was seriously ill with it. Also, the diet they were eat-ing now, plain porridge with salt and water and no milk, must havebrought the boy’s ailment to a serious stage. Rankoane merely smiledbecause he did not want to alarm the boy who looked like a thin, bonyscarecrow in his father’s oversized jacket.

“We are all coughing,” he said. “The reason why? There is toomuch dust and no rain to settle it. Dust in the lungs causes one tocough up blood. The one way to cure it is by drinking beer, but since

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you are young and cannot drink the beer you must go home tomorrowwith the cattle and your mother will take you to hospital.”

The small boy grinned at him cheerfully, with big, white teeth.He was amused at Rankoane’s reference to beer and the man-to-mantone of his voice. Still, he was worried. He could not take the cattleback to the village and burden his mother with them.

“Can’t I leave the cattle in your care until I come back from thehospital, Uncle?” he asked.

Rankoane had shifted uncomfortably. He was now drawing upa half bucket of water from his well and he could not add to his ownworries. Besides, Paulina Sebeso was a resourceful woman and shewould know what to do. He explained this to the boy who nodded. Thelast thing he would get from his mother was a scolding. She made ajoke of life and he already knew what she would say when he unexpec-tedly arrived home: “Goodness, Isaac, don’t tell me you have eaten upall your rations.” And he would say: “No, Mama, I have come home be-cause I am coughing up blood every day.” This would most surelystrike his mother as unusual, as she would not know of Rankoane’sstory about the dust in the lungs. The thought of his mother and hersurprise and concern filled the small boy’s heart with warm comfort.He stood up and walked back happily to his own roughly built hut, andit was the memory of this last conversation he had had with the boythat made Rankoane look back at Paulina Sebeso with a pained ex-pression. He ought not to have done so, for his look froze Paulina tothe ground and she could not move, so lifeless and numb was the feel-ing in her arms and legs. Several times Rankoane’s wife called to her,after the men had walked away. Eventually, she put the bucket downand walked over to Paulina.

“I say, my friend, what’s the matter?” asked Rankoane’s wife.Paulina looked at Rankoane’s wife almost bitterly. Women who

had husbands made the deep well of her own loneliness more acute toher.

“I’m thinking of going to the cattle post tomorrow to fetch myson,” she said.

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“My, but you are brave, Paulina Sebeso,” the other woman said.“I hear that the bush is now full of dangerous beasts who are feastingoff the dead cattle.”

Paulina Sebeso stared at Rankoane’s wife. People in comfortand safety said things like this to people who always faced the stormsand winters of life.

“You’re a silly fool, Segametse,” she said and walked away withher head held up proudly. But halfway to her own home she almostdropped it to the ground in despair, and so hangdog and depressedwas she that she nearly collided into Makhaya, who stood at the en-trance of her yard, looking out towards the smeared, murky red glowwhich was the sunset.

“Oh Makhaya,” she said, looking up at him with a taut, strainedface. “My whole life is turned upside down.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, smiling down at her. “The boy is young.It wouldn’t occur to him to come home with the cattle. We’ll go togeth-er to the cattle post tomorrow and bring him and the cattle back to thevillage.”

And that was all he said before walking away, back to the farm.There was nothing else he offered her except his kindness and help.On other days she questioned this relentlessly because he kept it unre-lated to any human feeling. He seemed to ignore the fact that heawakened a fire in someone else’s life with his generosity. But on thisday it lifted the weight off her arms and legs. He had not even askedher, as Rankoane had done, if her son had come home but had simplyproduced immediate solutions to her trouble. This filled her eyes witha quiet, wondering look. Yet Makhaya could have ended this odd gamewith a gesture or a few words or even a look. He knew how muchPaulina Sebeso loved him, but still he hesitated. He would not haveliked it if Paulina gave up and stopped loving him because it was like awarm sun on all the shadows of his life. It was just that there werethings he could not put in words, that a woman’s life was a clutter ofsmall everyday things – of babies, gossip, pots, food, fires, cups, andplates – and that all these things had crashed into his consciousness

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during the month he had worked on the dams and tobacco sheds withthe women.

Makhaya walked into the farm yard just as the cattlemen wererising from their discussion with Gilbert. They looked at Makhayacuriously with his strange, strongly marked facial bone structure. Theyhad yet to learn from their wives about the tobacco project and thedams that were being built to trap some of the storm water, but on thisevening there was no time for introduction to the stranger. The sightand sound of their cattle crashing dead on the ground were still full inthe men’s eyes, and they walked away with the heavy tread of peoplewho were grieved beyond consolation. Makhaya turned and looked athis friend Gilbert and started in surprise. He knew Gilbert so well bynow that he could judge his every mood, and on this evening he was ina mood of high elation, even though he kept his face quite serious andlistened attentively to Dinorego, who was summing up the situationfor him.

Dinorego was saying, “We can progress too, even though we areuneducated men. The mind of an uneducated man works like this: heis a listener and a believer. Most of all he is a believer. The uneducatedman has been condemned for many years by the authorities. Theycame to us and said, ‘We have found new grazing land in the west.Move the cattle over because the eastern side has no more grazingleft.’ Yet no one moved. The west is lion country. Some time agopeople were eaten by lions and that is enough. This is a belief in ourminds that we will be eaten by lions therefore we cannot go west.Today, once all the cattle have died, the authorities will say, ‘You see,we told you.’ But it is strange to me that they did not create the beliefthat the uneducated man could shoot the lions.”

He paused and looked at the two men with his shrewd, twink-ling eyes and both men burst out laughing. It was only a pity thatDinorego was not the Prime Minister of Botswana, as no one could de-feat his reasoning power or his faith in progress. He also liked an audi-ence and spread out his hands appreciatively and continued:

“Nearly every agriculture man knows about the progress of theuneducated man. They are always coming to us saying, ‘Look, I can

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show you how to plough eighty morgan of sorghum.’ Once he has pro-duced a field of eighty morgan, the uneducated man will be consumedby jealousy and try to do the same. What he sees, he believes. But henever questions a matter like an educated man. The miracle must beplaced before his eyes, then he will try to perform a miracle too.”

Gilbert looked at the old man intently, the blue flame of elationdancing brightly in his eyes. “What would you say if I said that thedeaths of all these cattle, in Golema Mmidi, are a miracle? What wouldyou say if I said I was hoping it would happen?” he asked.

The old man kept deadly silent as he suspected a trap in theseunexpected words of Gilbert, and Makhaya leaned forward with in-terest as he was now about to hear the reason for the suppressed ex-citement of his friend. Gilbert raised his hands like a gambler whoforesees only the gains that will come without any losses. He had threeyears of research and experiments behind him, but the cattle popula-tion of Golema Mmidi had been too huge and unwieldly for his plans.For planned and scientific production of high-grade beef, he needed adrastically reduced herd. He also needed the men near the food grow-ing areas where beef production and food production could be com-bined. He had everything on hand too, the latest developments in fod-der crops for cattle feed and silage making and his own experimentswith the natural grasses of Botswana and imported grass seed.

To the cattlemen he had merely presented the government’semergency plans for dealing with the situation, and these were thatthere was to be an accelerated slaughter of emaciated beasts at theabattoir. These emaciated beasts would be boiled down into cornedbeef. This slaughter of cattle would bring in about ten pounds per cowfor each man, which was better than nothing at all, and it was de-signed to relieve the situation until free emergency rations would ar-rive in about one months’ time. Thus each man would contribute somany head of cattle from his herd, and those that were left would bekept alive for one month on the fodder in the farm’s silage pits. Themen had agreed to this arrangement. They had also agreed to retainwithin the co-operative a certain sum of the money they received forthe wholesale slaughter of cattle. This would act as an incentive to the

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cattlemen to recoup from their losses and restock their herds. He alsotold the men that since they had an organized cattle co-operative inthe village the government had already agreed to drill a free borehole,whose equipment and management would in future be taken over bythe co-operative.

This was all he had told them, but to Makhaya and Dinorego,on whom he depended for the fulfilment of his dreams, he allowed hismind to leap ahead to three years from that date when all the thickforests of thornbush that surrounded Golema Mmidi had given way toacres and acres of cultivated fields on which crops grew, under irriga-tion, the year round. Golema Mmidi would have about ten to twelveboreholes and reservoirs by that time and as many more big dams tohold back every drop of storm water. And he willed his two compan-ions to see it, how Golema Mmidi would supply the whole countrywith the fresh fruit and vegetables it lacked, and apart from bringingin the highest profits for the best grade beef, it would also create thefirst industries in the country. Why, he had already picked up a cigar-ette manufacturer and made him sign a contract to buy tobacco grownby the Golema Mmidi tobacco growing co-operative, and this manu-facturer was already building a factory in northern Botswana.

“People have said to me, ‘Oh, forget farming in this dry coun-try,’” he said intensely. “I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years, butmy eyes have taught me that Botswana is a farmer’s heaven. It’s betterthan countries with a high rainfall. Farming under irrigation is con-trolled and predictable farming. Also, the long dry season is moresuited to crops like potatoes and tobacco, which need well-drainedsoil. We’ve a minimum of crop destroying pests to deal with too, andthe soil is rich and fertile.”

He looked at Makhaya with his eyes full of dreams, becauseMakhaya had proved himself the magician who could make tobaccoco-operatives appear overnight. He wanted Golema Mmidi to be co-operative in everything as that was the only way of defeating the landtenure system in the tribal reserves and the only way of defeating sub-sistence agriculture which was geared to keeping the poor man pooruntil eternity. Makhaya smiled back quietly and affectionately at his

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friend. He liked this kind of talk. He liked the idea that the whole ofGolema Mmidi would be full of future millionaires. It blended in withhis own dreams about Africa because he could not see it other than asa continent of future millionaires, which would compensate for all thecenturies of browbeating, hatred, humiliation, and worldwide derisionthat had been directed to the person of the African man. And com-munal systems of development which imposed co-operation and shar-ing of wealth were much better than the dog-eat-dog policies, take-over bids, and grab-what-you-can of big finance. Therefore, inMakhaya’s mind, the poverty and tribalism of Africa were a blessing ifpeople could develop sharing everything with each other.

“I like everything you say, Gilbert,” he said with deep feeling.They looked at the old man, who always had the last word oneverything. But Dinorego kept silent. He was regretting that the worldhad decided to improve itself only when he had become such an oldman with a few years left to live. Now, each time he decided he wouldrest in peace, he kept on learning more about life, and he was not feel-ing so contented about dying.

“I’m going to the cattle post tomorrow,” Makhaya said, break-ing the silence.

Gilbert and the old man looked at him in surprise. These werethe familiar words of a Batswana man, but they sounded strange onMakhaya’s lips.

Makhaya wanted to laugh out loud at their surprise. He felt nodesire whatsoever to own these huge beasts. They would be an intoler-able encumbrance to him. Hesitantly, he explained that he had prom-ised Paulina he would accompany her to her cattle post to see ifeverything was all right with her son.

“The boy may be ill,” he said. “She expected him to come homewith someone named Rankoane whose cattle post is near hers, but hesays the boy should have arrived home two weeks ago. Rankoane saysthe wells have dried up.”

It chilled Gilbert to hear this and he felt a sharp stab of pain atthe way he had light-heartedly talked of scientific beef productionamidst all this tragedy.

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“Mack, you know it’s a whole day’s walk to the cattle posts,” hesaid. “The three of us will leave first thing in the morning with theLand-Rover. I also want to see for myself what is happening in thebush.”

He looked across at Makhaya with all the elation gone out of hiseyes. His mind had jumped too far ahead into the future, but thepresent was painful and terrible.

“I hope the boy is only ill,” he said. “He may be dead.”Makhaya said nothing, yet once Maria came out of the hut and

called the three men to eat, his stomach was just tight, painful knotsand he excused himself and walked away to his hut. He lay down forsome time in his hut, in the darkness, with a strange sensation of hav-ing no thoughts in his head, only to discover, with an explosive shock,that he had been talking to himself all the time. He had no idea ofwhat he had been saying to himself because it was an incoherent ex-pression of the concentration of pain inside him. What sort of manwas he who only gave way to love under extreme pressure and pain?Perhaps, he had read somewhere, men and women just loved eachother without reason or purpose, but he did not belong to this world,not when everything inside him was in revolt. If he loved Paulina nowand admitted it to himself, it was because he sensed that she might befacing tragedy, and that she could not face it alone. He swung his legsoff the bed, stood up, and walked out of the dark farm to the home ofPaulina Sebeso. There was complete darkness in her yard as she wasalready in bed. He knocked on the door of the hut she used as abedroom.

“Who is it?” she asked, as she was not yet asleep.“Makhaya,” he said, quietly.She was silent awhile, then jumped out of bed and unlocked the

door. He could not even see her face in this pitch dark night, and therewas still this struggle within his aloof self, so uncertain was he of life.

“Gilbert will also be coming to the cattle post tomorrow,” hesaid, oddly, excusing himself because he was about to invade her lifethrough his fear of tomorrow.

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She still kept silent, half-wanting to laugh and half-wanting tocry. Then she closed her eyes to add to the darkness, because nothingthat you said seemed quite so bad when everything was dark.

“Makhaya,” she said softly. “You mustn’t think I’m a cheap wo-man, but I love you.”

“Why cheap?” he said, amused. “There are no cheap women.Even those you buy love you, while we men rarely do. Perhaps I’ll findout what love is like as we go along together.”

Makhaya was thankful, too, for the dark as he entered her hut.For so long there was this grey graveyard in which he had lived. Andwho could tell what ghosts really do when they come alive in the darknight?

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Eleven

It was just as though everything was about to die. The small brownbirds had deserted the bush, and the bush itself no longer suppliedthe coverage and protection for the secret activities of the scarlet

and golden birds. Here and there, faint patches of green clung to thetopmost branches of tall thorn trees, but not a green thing survivednear the sun-baked earth. The sky had lost that dense blue look of thewinter days and spread itself out into a whitish film, through whichthe sun poured out molten heat in pulsating waves from dawn to dusk.In this desolation the vultures reigned supreme. They gathered on theground in huge flocks of sixty to a hundred and held important discus-sions in hoarse, rough voices and flapped their long, sloppy brownfeathers in imperious indignation. They could afford to be imperious,indignant and important, for they were to be a burial society for oversix hundred thousand cattle. They were amazed and wondering if theywould manage it all or if they should send messages to fellow brethrenin Africa and India. But whatever their deliberations, they were fear-less and proud, for these mean, fierce birds knew that they were al-ways the last visitors on a stricken part of the earth.

Barely three miles away from the village of Golema Mmidi theimpact of all this struck the small party that had left for the cattle postearly in the morning. During the night, a cow that had belonged to oneof the cattlemen had lain down to calve and died in the process. Ajackal had hovered near her the whole night and at dawn set himself todevour the newborn calf. The approach of the Land-Rover disturbedhim and he arose and slunk away into the bush. Gilbert slowed downthe vehicle near the cow and his exclamation – “Oh, this is terrible!” –hardly conveyed the deep sense of shock Makhaya felt. From that dayMakhaya was to become peculiarly Motswana in his outlook. Comingfrom a country of green hills and fresh bubbling streams, he was fromthat day to treasure every green shoot that sprang up in this dry place,

and he would fear to waste even a drop of water. Paulina was the onlyone who was not deeply perturbed by what she saw. She had livedthrough times like this before, when the bush was bare and theploughing season delayed indefinitely. To her, it even seemed like anunreal and lovely spring morning when life was just beginning anewagain instead of dying, and her feelings relived over and over again awhole night’s dream.

He just sat there beside her looking as cool and aloof and un-changed as yesterday, while nothing of her own life was left to her, asthough she had become an appendage of his body like an arm or a leg.It wasn’t a pleasant feeling as no secure promises had been made. Onthe other hand, a woman distrusted extravagant promises and, on theother, lived in fear of the silence of a reserved man who only expressedhimself in deeds. Maybe women invented marriage, as their imagina-tions had invented most other things in man’s social life. They can’thelp saying, “Are you my property? I must own you.” And now Paulinabusied her mind with these things while the sky and the bush explodedinto a hot, white glare of heat.

Gilbert turned round and half-smiled at all the dreams in thewoman’s eyes.

“Am I still going in the right direction, Paul?” he asked. “Thebush is so changed, I can’t make out a thing.”

That is, if he ever had. Like the Tswana language, the bush be-longed to all the Batswana people, who had created its footpaths andmapped out its length and breadth in this minds. It had often amazedhim to discover that cattlemen drove their cattle home, through thebush, in pitch darkness, with an unerring sense of direction, while he,Gilbert, had several times lost his direction within the fenced farmlands, and his legs and arms bore lots of scars from having pitchedhimself into a barbed-wire fence at night. But Paulina had footed itthis way every three or four months to take her son his food rationsand see if all was well with him at the cattle post, and not so long ago,the call of birds had filled these empty spaces. They were always aftersomething, these lovely birds, and she had always kept corn seed inthe pocket of her skirt to scatter along the pathway. Now, the vultures,

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full and gorged, adorned the bare trees, and beneath their restingplaces lay the white, picked bones of the dead cattle. Those in the treesstared arrogantly at the passing vehicle, and those on the groundmerely waddled out of the way. They were the kings of the bush andwould remain so throughout this long year of no rain and no crops.

They passed a few empty drinking pools in the bush, andaround these were scattered the carcasses of the tiny wild buck. Hun-dreds had gathered at their favourite drinking places, because aboutthis time every year storm clouds brooded on the horizon and the rainfell down in blinding sheets of water and the scene changed overnightinto carpets of fine green grass and splashes of purple and yellowflowers and the drinking pools filled up with sky blue water. Thememory of all this drove them to their drinking pools, where theydied. The cattlemen had a similar memory. Towards the end of thelong dry season they too left their watering places along the river beds,and moved with their cattle into the bush where the grass grew intangled confusion under the trees, and watered their cattle in thedrinking pools of the wild buck. A few of the cattlemen, expecting rainat any time, had deviated towards these water pools on the journeyhomeward, only to have their huge herds fall down there and die. Ithappened over and over in Botswana that year.

Long before they reached Paulina’s cattle post they saw the vul-tures circling above it in the sky. This marked it out right away as oneof the death points. Once they drew close, they could see that not a liv-ing thing moved on the ground. All those eighty cattle lay scatteredabout, quite still, quite dead. It was like a final statement of all the ter-rible story of the bush. But there was still hope in the heart of themother. She somehow expected her son to creep out of the lone andsolitary hut, and she knew already how she would comfort him anddismiss all this as being of no account. So no one moved once Gilberthad stopped the car some twenty yards from the hut, and each personsat silently absorbing the desolate scene until the vultures beganswooping down in a straight column on the already decomposing car-casses. This jerked the woman into action and she scrambled out ofthe car and raced towards the hut. But Makhaya reached the door

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before her and pulled her back and looked at her briefly with an angryexpression. What was inside there was only for him to see. He pushedopen the door and looked in. There was only a heap of clean, whitebones lying on the floor. They lay in a curled, cramped position withthe bones of the hands curved inward. The white ants and maggotshad vied with each other to clear all the flesh off the little boy. AndMakhaya stood there so silent and still, absorbing this terrible sight,confused and angry that there was only this dead, unanswering silencein his heart, as though he had only expected to see such sights. Paulinatouched him on the back, and he swung around sharply with an ex-pression of hurt surprise on his face.

“The boy is dead,” he said sharply. “Why do you want to go in?”“I must see the body,” she said, but with dry, taut lips. “I must

see the body because it is our custom.”“You see,” he said, in a deliberately harsh voice. “All these rot-

ten customs are killing us. Can’t you see I’m here to bear all your bur-dens? Come on.”

And he walked towards the car, knowing she would meekly fol-low him. He stood nearby and waited until she had climbed in, then heturned, almost with relief, to Gilbert, who sat at the wheel of the carwith an ashen face.

“Is the boy dead, too?” Gilbert said.“Yes,” Makhaya said shortly, and he had no idea that the hurt

expression was still on his face. It was like having a smudge there andnot knowing you had it. As though, Gilbert thought, he wanted to feelfor everyone and get the matter over with. A small light of friendshipand understanding stirred in Gilbert’s eyes, and sensing this Makhayaspoke so trustingly to him:

“We don’t know what has caused the death of the child, myfriend,” he said. “So, we will have to call the police. Could you pleasetake my wife home and notify the police at the same time? I’ll remainbehind.”

These few simple words put new life into Gilbert. He noddedbriefly and turned the car round, and he and Paulina drove back in thedirection of Golema Mmidi. Makhaya was left alone with the vultures.

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Surrounded by tragedy and seated in the shade of a ramshackle mudhut in the Botswana bush, he began to see himself. In retrospect heseemed a small-minded man. All his life he had wanted some kind ofUtopia, and he had rejected in his mind and heart a world full of ail-ment and faults. He had run and run away from it, but now the timehad come when he could run and hide no longer and would have toturn round and face all that he had run away from. Loving one womanhad brought him to this realization: that it was only people who couldbring the real rewards of living, that it was only people who give loveand happiness.

As though to confirm his new trend of thought, he stirred a footand found it brushed against a bundle of something carefully tied up.He opened the bundle and in it was a collection of wood carvings,done by the small boy to occupy himself during the lonely hours ofcattle herding. Among the assortment he picked up a thick porridgespoon, one and a half feet in length. A great deal of effort had been putinto the production of this spoon. The small boy had probably inten-ded it to be a gift to his mother. He had decorated the long handle withthe twisting pattern of a snake’s scaly body, and almost every detail,right up to the venomous eyes, had been reproduced. The design wasbold and vivid and he had burned it into the wood with a red-hot pieceof iron. Makhaya looked at it for some time, struggling to capture a liv-ing image of a child he did not know. He hoped he and Paulina wouldnever create a child who would be expected to carry burdens beyondhis age.

All the other carvings concerned themselves with the animalsthe small boy had observed in his surroundings, wild bucks, tortoises,monkeys, and birds. The birds were carved into a majestic, charcoalboat, and a half a dozen of them sat tail to tail with their heads in theair, like kings. One carving in particular aroused Makhaya’s curiosity.The piece of wood was not more than six inches in length, and half ofthe grain was a livid flesh colour and the other was snow white. Out ofthis the boy had carved a minute crocodile with the same attention todetail as the snake design. Where had the boy seen a crocodile? Therewere none along the eastern border area where the cattle grazed. And

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the surrounding area was thornbush forest, and the tiny piece of woodwas a foreigner to the area.

He bent to tie up the bundle and the slight clatter of woodagainst wood made him look up at a comical drama that was playedout barely six inches away from him. A wild jackal had been swiftly ap-proaching the graveyard of cattle, and thinking himself alone with thevultures, he had concentrated his whole mind on his forthcomingmeal. The unexpected noise brought him to a dead halt, and his firstreaction was one of abject fear.

Looking neither left nor right, he almost slunk into the groundand then, a moment later, lifted one right paw in pathetic, pitiful apo-logy, at the same time baring his sharp, jagged teeth in a savage snarl.Since the snarl went unchallenged, the poor thing quickly recovered it-self and swivelled its foxy face in Makhaya’s direction. The sun was be-hind the jackal, but as he turned, its reflection shone in his beautifulamber eyes in honey-gold flashes. He had a soft, thick, honey-goldcoat too, with a contrasting streak of silver and black fur down hisback. He stood for a few seconds, eyeing Makhaya fearfully and thenturned and bounded away into the bush. It occurred to Makhaya that awild animal was more afraid of man than a man need be of it, and itsone thought was to retreat as far from man as possible. It seemed tohim that in essence most of his reactions had been like those of thejackal, from the day he had been born. For some time his mouthquivered with amusement at the strange antics of the wild animal.Maybe that panic-stricken beast had a jackal society where he felt saneand secure, but no human society was sane and normal. Yet he neededto come to terms with his society because he needed a woman andchildren.

He could not go on thinking of the heap of bones that lay insidethe hut, because death was like trying to clutch the air, and you had tolet it be and slowly let it pass aside, without fuss and indignity. In-stead, you had to concentrate the mind on all that was still alive andtreat it as the most precious treasure you had ever been given. Besides,he had felt all the pain he was capable of feeling the night before, andit had directed his actions along this new path. So, he sat there

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thinking about his new life with Paulina. Even ordinary things likecups, brooms, pots, and houses were a pleasure to him to contemplate,once he had become aware of their existence, as though all thesethings would anchor him firmly to the earth. They also strengthenedhis resolve to be a future millionaire, for many a future millionairemust have had a dead child in his life who had died from lack of prop-er food, and he must have had a one-room hut in which he couldhardly move and breathe. He must have lain awake at night, craving afour-room house with a kitchen, bathroom and taps, and mentallyclothed this house with ornaments, chairs and beds, and he must havesaid he would always spend five pounds but get ten pounds back aschange. If a man didn’t have dreams like this, in Africa, he would endup food for the vultures too.

These horrible creatures guzzled and guzzled, seeming to havebottomless appetites. The wind swept huge columns of sand up intothe sky, which carried the odour of death with it and brought morevultures, in thick, black patrols. They swooped down with their bigwings outstretched like supersonic jets. Some of the fully gorged birdsmade way for the newcomers, flying up into the thorn trees and adorn-ing the bare branches in monstrous, silent, carved postures. Even thewind blew according to its own mad pattern. For hours tiny gusts flewin harassed circles around the thornbush until they all converged intoa roaring turmoil of air and red dust which would race madly for amile or so along the earth and then sweep up and disperse itself in thesky.

Makhaya stood up at last, sickened by the ceaseless clack, clackof the vultures’ beaks. Away from the little hut and the vultures wasthe endless, dead vista of scorched earth and twisted dry thornbush.He leaned against a dead tree and closed his eyes, all his capacity forthought slowly seeping out of him. This bush on all sides was the mostawful life imaginable, and it occurred to Makhaya that it must havebeen this unrelieved, heavy isolation which had driven the lively-minded Dinorego out of the cattle business. Yet thousands of peoplelived like this, like trees, in all the lonely wastes of Africa, cut off evenfrom communication with their own selves. Was it any wonder that

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life stood still if a man became a tree? Therefore, he, Makhaya, couldrun so far in search of peace, but it was contact with other living be-ings that a man needed most. Maybe even Utopias were just trees.Maybe. Maybe he walked around in hopeless circles, but at least hewas attempting to reach up to a life beyond the morass in which allblack men lived. Most men were waiting for the politicians to sort outtheir private agonies.

At this point he ceased thinking altogether, and the sun passedits topmost peak in the sky and began sinking towards the horizon. Atabout three o’clock Gilbert returned with the police officer GeorgeAppleby-Smith and a doctor. Makhaya sat in the car drinking a littlewater and eating food which Gilbert had brought along, while the po-liceman and doctor made their reports. Gilbert also sat in the car buthe kept silent, too. Eventually the doctor came out of the hut andwalked towards the car.

“I’d say the poor little fellow died of malnutrition,” he said.He kept quiet a moment, screwed up his eyes, and looked away.

The hospitals were full of children who died in the posture of the littleboy in the hut, their knees cramped up to their chins, their bony fin-gers curled into their palms like steel claws. Most of those who sur-vived would be mental defectives or cripples – while this little boy hadmercifully died.

“The policeman wants to know if it’s all right to bury the boyhere,” he added quietly.

Only Makhaya moved. “I’ll accept responsibility for that,” hesaid. He turned round and picked up a small can of petrol, jumped outof the car, and walked to the hut. George Appleby-Smith stood in thedark hut, staring at the little heap of bones, with an expressionlessface. All these sights were supposed to be all in a day’s work to him.But he stored these experiences away to give him the courage to runhis area the way he thought it ought to be run, even to befriending ‘se-curity risks’ like Makhaya. All those authorities had kicked up such adust about his allowing a ‘security risk’ to settle in Golema Mmidi, butthey never had occasion to come out into the bush to see how children

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died, while he, George, saw everything, every day. He turned towardsMakhaya with one of those very rare smiles.

“Hullo, Makhaya,” he said. “You settling down?”“You still sticking your neck out for me?” Makhaya countered,

also smiling.Makhaya bent and poured a little petrol over the heap of bones,

struck a match, and within a few seconds converted the pathetic sightinto ashes. Then he scooped up the ashes into a small container whichwas lying in a corner of the hut. There was not a trace of the agony andfright in which the little boy must have died. Apart from the tin con-tainer, the small boy’s bedding, a half a bag of ant-riddled sorghummeal, and a badly burned porridge pot, there was nothing else in thehut. They took with them only the tin container and the tied-up bundleoutside the hut. It was long past sundown when they arrived in the vil-lage of Golema Mmidi. Even George Appleby-Smith had nothing tosay. Droughts and dead children made him lose his sense of humour,and he got into his own car with the doctor and drove away. Mariawalked quickly into the yard in her aloof, serious way. The whole vil-lage knew by now that Paulina’s child had died and they were all in heryard, not talking but just sitting in heavy silent groups, like the trees.Makhaya suddenly could not bear this most exacting of all African cus-toms, not just then, not with his emotional involvement with Paulina.He handed the tin container to Maria.

“Please take this to Paulie,” he said. “Tell her I thought it bestto burn what was left of the child.”

Gilbert walked with his wife to the home of Paulina butMakhaya walked to his own hut, still clutching the tied-up bundle ofwood carvings, and dropped on the bed in a deep and dreamless sleep.An hour later Maria knocked on the door. She had a tray with food anda cup of tea. There was silence inside the hut so she pushed the dooropen and walked in, setting the tray down on the table. She stoodlooking down with a slight smile at the sleeping man. Being an Africanman he ought to have known that nothing happened on the continentof Africa without all Africans getting to know of it. In some mysteriousway, the news had travelled around the village of Golema Mmidi that

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Makhaya had spent the previous night at Paulina’s home, even thoughPaulina had made no mention of it to anyone. God knows what theyexpected of the poor man, but it had added a twist of drama to aneveryday event of mourning a death, which event everyone had to par-ticipate in. People were genuinely sorry for the bereaved Paulina, butthey soon forgot it when only Maria and Gilbert turned up for theshow with the remains of the dead child in a tin container. A lively tit-ter of whispering started and Maria heard it all, silly things that wouldkeep women twittering for days. If you can’t face a crowd you must bea person who hates people, irrespective of a lifetime of individualdeeds of kindness to individual people. That’s why deviationists andindependent-minded people were so few in Africa. But it wasn’t be-cause of the crowd that she awoke Makhaya. They had dispersed andgone their way by now. It was because of Paulina and the way sheblamed herself for the death of her child in a quiet, final and despair-ing way without the usual tears or hysterics. She kept on looking ateveryone with that haughty stare as much as to say, “Why don’t you allgo away.” Only Mma-Millipede suspected that this quiet attitudemeant that Paulina might try to kill herself, and she had confided thisaside to Maria and said that she would remain behind, even for thewhole night if necessary.

Maria bent and shook the sleeping man awake. “Have somefood,” she said in a kind and gentle voice because she was sorry, in herpersonal and private way, for everyone’s suffering.

Since she hesitated, he turned to this twin soul of privacy andisolation and asked, “Do you know what I saw today, Maria?”

“No,” she said curiously.“Even the trees were dying, from the roots upward,” he said.

“Does everything die like this?”“No,” she said. “You may see no rivers on the ground but we

keep the rivers inside us. That is why all good things and all goodpeople are called rain. Sometimes we see the rain clouds gather eventhough not a cloud appears in the sky. It is all in our heart.”

He nodded his head, fully grasping this in its deepest meaning.There was always something on this earth man was forced to love and

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worship by reason of its absence. People in cloudy, misty climates wor-shipped the sun, and people in semi-desert countries worshipped therain.

“Paulina is blaming herself for the death of the child,” she ad-ded softly, frightened at involving herself in the feelings of this sensit-ive man.

“I knew she would,” he said, and paused in his eating andlooked up at her. “I couldn’t say anything about it with everyone there.Have they gone away?”

“Yes, but Mma-Millipede is still there.”He put the unfinished plate of food on the tray and stood up,

waiting for her to pick up the tray and leave the hut. Then he blew outthe candle and picked up the bundle of wood carvings.

“What a way for you to come home, little boy,” he whispered,and stepped out into the dark night. The wind had died down and thestars shone down in the low, black sky with full, green lights. The starswere always there to accompany a man’s lonely footsteps. They hadbeen with him on the night he first arrived in Botswana, and they werelike sprays of flowers between the narrow, grim streets of the slums inwhich he had grown up. They would be there too after he passed away,and they were all the conviction he had that some quiet and good cre-ator controlled and owned the earth.

Mma-Millipede was saying much the same thing to Paulina.They sat out in the yard, near a bonfire of logs which the men of

the village had lit, as a sign of death in the house. He stood for a mo-ment outside the range of the firelight and listened to the murmur ofMma-Millipede’s voice. Not only Jesus Christ had observed this butMma-Millipede too – that this earth was not the final abode of man. Itwas a place of sorrows, a wilderness in which his soul wandered inrestless torment. The soul had to accept this. But the young womanwhom she so wisely counselled drooped her head and arms forlornlyto the ground. No words, however wise, could explain the awfulness ofdeath, not while the living were firmly attached to love, child-bearing,child-rearing, hunger, struggle, and the sunrise of tomorrow. Life hadto flow all the time, for the living, like water in a stream. Makhaya held

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it in his hand. It was the little bundle of wood carvings. Yet he stoodwhere he was until the two women slowly became aware of hispresence.

“Makhaya!” Paulina exclaimed, jumping up and rushing to-wards the faint outline of his white shirt. “Oh, why did you take solong to come,” she cried brokenly, and a torrent of hot tears spilled onto his shirt like a small waterfall. He slipped one free arm around herthin, bony waist. “Aren’t you glad I’ve come now? I’ve brought yousomething.” But even when she had untied the bundle near the fire-light, with trembling fingers, this small waterfall continued to drenchher arms and blouse and skirt. Mma-Millipede had to join in too withlong, slow teardrops and many ‘Bathos’ while they examined thecarvings, one by one. After a time Makhaya could see that they wereactually laughing in spite of those tears because they both knew theboy, with his oversized scarcrow coat and big smile. They saw how hehad killed a snake in the bush, brought it back to his hut and carefullycopied the patterns of its body on to the wooden handle of a porridgespoon. But the handwork on the little crocodile was different from thesmall boy’s rough strokes. It had the smooth, polished finish of an oldprofessional hunter and wood-carver and such a man had passed bythe small boy’s cattlepost one day and exchanged his own professionalwork for that of a cheerful little boy. And what other way was there tomourn the death of such a boy? Makhaya liked it this way, for he ima-gined the small boy the way he had been, standing quite close by andobserving it. It made his heart feel very peaceful. It reminded Mma-Millipede that her back was aching and she was very tired. He stoodup and accompanied Mma-Millipede all the way to her home, her tiredfeet shuffling quietly on the path beside him.

She sighed deeply to herself in an absent-minded way, but asthey were about to part company she said, “Well, I say, my son, this isa world full of sorrows.”

“Yes,” he said.But in spite of agreeing with Mma-Millipede his heart contin-

ued to feel peaceful. Perhaps he would have the courage to make chil-dren in such a world. For in this kind of lull from the inner torture of

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his life, he could think clearly. He was just an ordinary man and hewanted to stay that way all his life. None of the tinsel and glitter of theworld attracted him but just what there was to live on and make dowith in a village like Golema Mmidi. They were going to start shootingup everyone one day, and George Appleby-Smith would come to himand say, “I’m sorry but the government wants you to leave becauseyou’re a security risk.”

And you wouldn’t know what they meant by that because Africawas your country and there was no place else where a black manwould come into his own and eventually lift up his head with dignity.Perhaps the whole world would still pretend not to understand yourstate of mind.

“We’re morality,” they’ll say. “For God’s sake stop theslaughter, we’re on your side. We’re morality and we’re on your side.”

But in the meanwhile he walked back to a firelight in the Bot-swana bush with these unending tortures stilled for a bit. He hoped tofind out something because there were too many riddles and ironiesthese days, even in the African bush. He understood a man like Gilbertperfectly, as though life never did anything haphazardly but preparedpeople for their friends and threw them together at the right momentfor some more obscure purpose than building dams, tobacco co-oper-atives, and cattle feeding grounds. Maybe he would not survive withhis ‘security risk’ status, but the world would not rid itself of Africanmen. He would always be there, but not any longer as the white man’sjoke, or his ‘mundt’ or his ‘kaffir’ or his ‘boy’.

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Twelve

Aweek after Paulina Sebeso’s child had been found dead in the hutat the cattlepost, the village of Golema Mmidi awoke to a daysuch as they would never forget. Looking back, the people even

wondered aloud as to how it had all begun with such an ordinary eventas the sunrise. Most of the women were up and about at dawn thesedays as they now had husbands to attend to, and from every yard asmoke haze arose as they all prepared the early morning tea andporridge.

Paulina found she had to wear two faces these days, one forwhen she was in a crowd and one for when she was alone. When shewas alone, she smiled to herself because she was happy and could notreconcile this happiness to the loss of her boy and all her cattle. Mma-Millipede would have said that it was one rare occasion when the Lordtook away with one hand and gave with another because it was seldomthat the Lord ever gave a woman a man like Makhaya. Of course,Makhaya still observed some African customs like just coming andstaying with a woman without first marrying her and then being indef-inite about the date of marriage which might take place even after twoor three children had been born. But which African man really loved awoman the way they could all see that Gilbert loved Maria? By love aman stuck to one woman, but African men liked the woman whostayed up the hill and the one in the valley and the one in the next vil-lage, all in the same nice indiscriminate way. In this way Makhayadiffered from all African men, so Paulina reasoned. He had a lot offunny things to say for himself too, not all of which she understood,but she would have fought anyone with blows who questioned her loy-alty to Makhaya. So she made the tea with a gay, light heart and thenset a pot near the fire for bathing water.

I’ll have to do this and that today, she said to herself, noddingher head as she ticked off the items and carefully poured the tea into

the cups. Makhaya had told her not to slosh any of it on to the saucer.Even homes of mud huts must be run like a hotel, he said, witheverything spick-and-span, and the small girl ought to be bathed fromhead to toe every night. Talk about a wonderful man who cared aboutall these small things? Not only that. The tobacco the women were togrow had been the talk of the village ever since the men had comeback.

They had all been to the farm to stare in fascination at the tinyexperimental plot of olive-green tobacco leaf. So, this was what theirwives and sweethearts were up to now, they said to each other, flushedwith pride, the same way the ancient hunters of history must have re-acted when they came back from hunting trips and found their wiveshad cultivated the wheat and domesticated a few wild animals for theirmeat. Indeed what else was this small venture into tobacco growingbut to arouse an interest in the men in the production of cash crops.The men would eventually have to take on the task of producing thoseacres and acres of tobacco. But first they would have to stay home.Could a twenty-eight-mile fence be erected for a cattle holding ground,Gilbert had asked? Of course, they said. And the men were prepared topool their labour for the big job, but just right now they were sortingout how to keep alive what cattle they had left. This was problem num-ber one until help arrived, three weeks from now, in the form of emer-gency rations and a spare borehole.

Paulina saw Gilbert walking into the yard now to fetchMakhaya so that they could go to the ranch. And Makhaya was stillasleep even though she had awakened him fifteen minutes ago. Heseemed to like getting up in a commotion of hurry. Paulina rushedabout flustered and breathless for five minutes until the two menwalked out of the yard. Then she bent down, poured the remainder ofthe bath into a basin, picked it up, and was about to enter the hut towash when, to her amazement, she saw a silent figure crouched downnear the entrance of her yard. It was one of Matenge’s servants.

“Good-day, friend,” she said apprehensively. “What do youneed?”

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The servant looked up, a sly grin on her servile face. “I am sentto bring you to court. The chief has a case.”

“I?” Paulina said, stupified. “But what have I done?”Again there was that sly grin. This wretched creature in smelly

rags and tatters was the last contact with mankind that Matenge had.He had been muttering and fuming to the servants for some days now,and the grinning was an arrogant pride of someone who is alwayskicked around yet needed by the master.

“Agh, leave me alone,” Paulina said impatiently, and walked in-to the hut.

But when she came out the servant was still there, croucheddown, and she began to be afraid, wondering what she had done to of-fend Matenge. And all she could think of was that she had forgotten toreport the death of her son to the chief. It was a custom but surely acourt case could not be made out of forgetfulness? She even pulled thelittle girl about roughly as she dressed her for school, so nervous andunsettled did she feel. Also, today was the day when she and a group ofwomen were to harvest the first batch of tobacco. They would soonjoin her in the yard. She turned to the servant, wanting to wait for herfriends.

“I suppose the chief is offended because I forgot to report thedeath of my son?” she asked tentatively.

“I really don’t know,” the servant said, with that maddeninggrin.

Paulina decided that she would no longer speak to this dreadfulperson but she took her time, dishing up a plate of porridge for herselfand her child, waiting for her friends. She liked company at all times,especially when there was trouble.

Just at this time too, the six old men who sat on the villagecouncil were receiving the message to attend court and, like Paulina,they were stunned and apprehensive. Matenge never called them un-less it was to destroy an inhabitant of Golema Mmidi. He had neverdone one act of kindness towards the villagers, seeming to be placedthere only for their torture. They gathered their tattered coats aboutthem and shuffled towards the centre of the village.

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Paulina’s friend stepped into the yard at that moment andstraight away decided to accompany Paulina to the court case. Alongthe way they picked up Maria, then Dinorego, and Mma-Millipede.The news travelled swiftly from hut to hut, and men and women im-mediately set down their chores for the day and made their way to thevillage centre. They were even excited in a silent way as though theyhad known this day would arrive when they would all face their perse-cutor of many years.

They had been straining together in one direction for years, andMatenge had been straining in the opposite direction, always pullingthem down. Because of this they had politely avoided him, but todaythey wanted to see his face when their cattle were dying while hiscattle were safe, way up on the northern border where a river flowedthe year round and the grass was good and salty and green. Theywanted to see this man who had all the privileges, who had neverknown a day of starvation in this country of two years of good rain andseven years of drought. They wanted to know what his mood was likeafter these years of silence and mute disagreement. They wanted himto know they were not after his Chevrolet or big house. They wouldeven tell him this with gentle smiles and pleasant gestures and reas-sure him that it was only their lives they wanted to set right and hemust not stand in their way. He was there through their tolerance.They would even be able to tolerate ten thousand Matenges, but thedisagreement between him and them was that he said no, no, no, toeverything they wanted to do. But they were the people of GolemaMmidi to whom too many tyrants and unscrupulous men had said no,no, no, and people like the people of Golema Mmidi could not behunted, hounded, banished, and persecuted forever and forever andforever. Were they to be driven to the vultures who now soared over-head in the blazing, dead-white sky? Very well then, the whole village,as one man, would go and die in the bush if that was all a tyrantwanted of them. If you said no, no, no, and kept your claws in apeople’s heart, what else did you want but that they should all die?You were so unreasonable.

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These thoughts ran through the minds of all the villagers asthey hurried towards the home of Matenge. It wasn’t any longerPaulina Sebeso who was to be persecuted alone but the whole villageof Golema Mmidi. Thus, when all the villagers suddenly found them-selves meeting face to face at the village centre, they looked at eachother and smiled and laughed with a load taken off their minds be-cause they were at last of the same mind. Only three people were ab-sent – Gilbert, Makhaya, and Pelotona, the permit man.

Matenge had not expected this. He stood in the shadow of hisenclosed porch, watching the crowd. When they turned and walked to-wards the gate of his yard, he retreated indoors, in panic, runningfrom window to window and door to door, barricading himself inside.The servants, observing his panic, crept like stricken shadows out ofthe backdoor and fled into the bush. He was left alone with his panic,in a dark, locked house. He walked to one of the windows and lookeddown into the yard. The villagers had all seated themselves on theground, with their faces turned expectantly towards the house, waitingfor him to come out. And they would wait and wait and wait now be-cause this was the end of the road for them and Matenge. Big, slowtears rolled down the rutted grooves of his cheeks as he stood there,watching them.

Why did he cry? The greatest moments of his life had beenwhen he had inflicted suffering on his fellow men. People were notpeople to him but things he kicked about, pawns to be used by him, tobreak, banish and destroy for his entertainment. That was the tradi-tion in which he had grown up, and maybe he could not be blamed fortaking full advantage of it. Most chiefs were half Matenge and half ofthe casual charm of his brother, and they lived on their own weirdtightrope as fathers of the people. Half the time they turned on thecharm, just in the nick of time to save themselves from damnation.But they were all an evil, cruel crowd.

Only Matenge had not known how to turn on the charm to savehimself.

Was he crying now because, for the first time in his life, he wasfeeling what it must be like to face a tomorrow without any future?

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That was what those upturned faces meant. He would have to go away.They weren’t going to tolerate a man like him any longer because hewould not give way nor understand that they needed co-operationfrom the man at the top to whom everyone had to go for permission toprogress. The Matenges and Paramount Chief Sekotos did not have tolift up the spades and dig the earth. It cost them nothing to say yes,yes, yes, build your dam because we have no water in this country. Butit gave them a deep and perverted joy to say no, no, no. The end of itwas that Matenge had to barricade himself up, not because the villa-gers were about to rise up and tear him to shreds, but because he wasan evil pervert and knew it. Only you could not understand why a manlike that stood there crying like a forlorn and lonely child.

A flock of vultures gathered overhead, circling in the sky, eye-ing the villagers with extreme interest and curiosity, so accustomedhad they become to feasting on anything in sight, and it was the long,lazy, swooping flight of the vultures over the centre of the village thatconfirmed to the three men at the cattle ranch that something hadgone seriously wrong in the village of Golema Mmidi. They had beenwaiting for the village men to come to the ranch. Cattle had to betrucked, rations distributed. But all that had faced them for a half anhour of waiting was this eerie silence. Then the flight of the vultures.Gilbert and Makhaya and the permit man looked at each other asmuch as to say: What now? Then they walked along the footpaths,passed the deserted huts with rising alarm. No Paulina. No Maria. Andeven the farm workers had left off their duties.

The three men got into the Land-Rover and drove to the villagecentre and right up to the gate of Matenge’s home. They climbed out alittle uncertainly and stood near the gate. Everyone turned around butfor a while no one spoke. And there was just this silent, shut-up housewith the gleaming Chevrolet in the yard.

Even Dinorego failed to explain the situation, and once morethe villagers turned their heads towards the house.

“What’s happening here, people?” Makhaya asked at last, in aloud, clear voice.

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“We’re waiting for the chief to come out, son,” Dinoregoreplied, without turning around.

How long had this strange game been going on. Makhayawondered? Without further thought, he began walking calmly towardsthe house. He climbed the steep flight of stairs and disappeared fromthe gaze of the villagers on the dark, enclosed porch. A moment laterthey heard a tremendous crash as Makhaya broke down the door.Then a long silence. The villagers all arose and also climbed the steepstairway. Those in the forefront stood looking silently for a while intothe big dining room, not at the luxurious couches, carpets and high-backed kingly chair, but at the dead, still body hanging from a rafter.Makhaya had the phone in his hand and was talking to GeorgeAppleby-Smith.

“I can’t say for how long,” he was saying. “Must I cut the rope?”“Are you sure he’s dead?” the inspector asked.“I can’t say,” Makhaya faltered. “I’m not sure, except that he’s

quite still.”Makhaya paused and a twisted spasm of pain swept across his

face. Could the man hang like that with all the villagers staring in?“There’s been some trouble here today,” he continued on the

phone. “I don’t know the details, but the whole village is here.”“Okay, cut down the body. I’ll be there in about ten minutes,”

and Makhaya heard the man at the other end slam down the phone.In his office George Appleby-Smith stared sightlessly at the

wall. Things always went this way in this goddam country. Every vil-lage was a hornets’ nest where someone had to be irrevocably got ridof. Someone had to go round the bend, die, or be driven out. Life wasalways extremes, harsh black and whites with no soft greys or in-betweens or compromises. He’d long seen Matenge was a crack but inthis kind of goddam country where everyone was bullshitting around,the cracks and nuts and loose bolts had the upper hand. Even his goodfriend Paramount Chief Sekoto was a crack and nut and loose bolt. Hesmiled to himself. Today, after it was all over, he’d go and have a quietbeer in the railway pub – to a fellow whose guts he admired. He hadn’tthought Gilbert would stick it out to the end. He’d long expected him

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to become a loose bolt too, with all the nonsense that was going on inGolema Mmidi.

He picked up the phone, still smiling to himself. A momentlater he heard the gay, bubbling voice of the Paramount Chief, “Hullo,hullo, George. How’s things?”

“Have you got a coffin, pal?”“Ha, ha. Gracious me, George. Don’t tell me you want to die

now. You’re just a spring chicken.”“It’s not me,” said that familiar, casual drawl. “It’s your brother

Matenge. He’s gone and killed himself.”There was an abrupt silence at the other end, and George could

quite clearly see Chief Sekoto put on his funeral face. Chief Sekoto wasa play actor on all occasions. He lived life with his face while his heartremained calm, empty, and serene.

“I’m very sorry to hear this news, George,” he said.“So am I,” George said dryly.“I’m coming right over with the coffin,” Chief Sekoto said. But

he remained holding on to the phone in an absent-minded way. Howmany beasts would have to be slaughtered? How many relatives to in-sult by not sending a personal invitation to the funeral? How to squashthe scandal of the suicide? Oh, oh, the mess and fuss and bother. Thetalk, talk, talk. He closed his eyes. Even in death his brother upset hisdigestion for the whole day. He put the phone down, dusted his hands,and waddled briskly out of the office, carefully adjusting his funeralface. Along the way to his home he met his secretary.

“Pule,” he said, in a sombre voice. “Please order a coffin. Put itin the truck. I’ll have to go to Golema Mmidi as brother has just died ofa heart attack.”

He said this to several people, even the wife. Matenge had diedof a heart attack. He wanted to create confusion. The people of GolemaMmidi would come up with their own story, but once there were twoconflicting versions, people would doubt everything, even if they sawthe rope around Matenge’s neck. And they would soon become bored.But a suicide, in a chief’s house? Oh, oh, oh. It would go down in his-tory. Most of all, things had to go smoothly, quickly. Chief Sekoto had

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lots of practice too. He buried everyone – concubines, commoners,royal relatives, and foreigners. And he put his funeral face away onehour after the dust of the earth had enclosed the coffin. This timethere was a heavy feeling in his heart. It wasn’t easy to dismiss the in-tense, dramatic face of his brother. As though it was a question markbefore life. As though his brother had suffered because he had wantedmore things than a man should desire for one life and then life itselfhad frustrated all these desires. As though his brother had been thehelpless victim of terrible, private hungers. What else made a man doall the things his brother had done? And a great shadow of gloomclouded Chief Sekoto’s outlook that day. By the time he arrived inGolema Mmidi, he wasn’t play acting any more but was genuinelyupset.

He found the villagers seated quietly and patiently in the yardas he drove the big truck with the coffin through the gate. A few menmoved to the truck to lift down the coffin and carry it into the house.Chief Sekoto got out and stood for a moment leaning against the truth,trying to take stock of the situation. There was that desperately earnestyoung man, Gilbert, also leaning against his Land-Rover and lookingup at the sky where the vultures circled and circled. Chief Sekoto couldpicture so clearly the day Gilbert had walked into his office and ChiefSekoto had thought him mad with all his talk about the poor. The poorwere just the poor, and the commoner was just the commoner, andthey were not very interesting people to Chief Sekoto. They lived suchstupid lazy lives. They were so filthy in their habits that a mud hut wasall they deserved.

How was Chief Sekoto to know that there was a quiet and des-perate revolution going on throughout the whole wide world? Peoplewere being drawn closer and closer to each other as brothers, and onceyou looked on the other man as your brother, you could not bear thathe should want for anything or live in darkness. Maybe he knew noth-ing about this because this revolution belonged to young people likeGilbert and Makhaya.

These young people only puzzled a man like Chief Sekoto. If hehad had the good looks of the handsome refugee what a colourful

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drama his life would have been! One dramatic love affair after anoth-er. And here was the young man, wasting his life away in the bush.Someone told him they did this because they were communists – allthis permission requested to build dams and register co-operatives.He had queried his friend George about this communist business, andhis only reply had been: Bullshit. George had all the top-secret inform-ation too, and Chief Sekoto never doubted his word. Besides therewere mad people and mad people. He had never lost a night’s sleepover the presence of the two young men in his tribal reserve, but hehad lost plenty of sleep over his brother.

He straightened his short body and waddled briskly up thestairs. There was a crowd of people in the big dining room and thecoffin was on the floor. He averted his gaze from the body of his broth-er, which was stretched out on a couch, and walked over to George,who stood by himself at the far end of the room.

“What happened?” he asked in a whisper.George shrugged. “People say they wanted to have a peaceful

discussion with the chief,” he said, keeping his face expressionless.“What was this peaceful discussion about?” Chief Sekoto asked.“Their cattle are dying,” George said, then just kept silent.Chief Sekoto looked at him, puzzled, “I don’t understand,” he

said. “Did my brother kill himself because people’s cattle are dying?”George gave his friend a long look before replying, then he

shrugged again. “Just a week ago,” he said softly, “…just a week ago wefound a dead child of this village at the cattle post. He died a most hor-rible death from malnutrition. We held no one to blame for it becauseyou can’t prosecute droughts and famine. But today your brotherwanted to prosecute the mother of this child for some unknown of-fence. The people of this village came to attend the trial. That’s all theydid.”

Chief Sekoto looked at the ground. He did not know what tothink because if he did he might have felt too, and that would stifleand choke him. It was all a bad tragedy, his brother, the poor. ButGeorge Appleby-Smith stared at everything with peaceful eyes, eventhe way the village men gently lifted the body of Matenge into the

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coffin. He would never be able to close his eyes to all these people inrags and tatters and no shoes. They were all he really lived with in hisdaily work. They were so poor, yet it never occurred to them to steal.Because of this the prisons were nearly always empty. A murder caseturned up once in a blue moon. Instead, you found yourself inspectorof a police station where a lot of absent-minded people walked in toreport that they had forgotten their blankets on the train. Could youplease find their blankets? You got other curious things happening toyou, too. Once, for a year, almost at the exact same hour each after-noon, a big white goat would step into his office and walk around sniff-ing the untidy jumble of papers. Then walk out again. He never foundout to whom that goat belonged because he never directly involvedhimself with anyone, but both goats and people love George Appleby-Smith. And he appreciated this deeply.

The men lifted the coffin and carried it out to the truck. A lot ofthe villagers, including Mma-Millipede and Dinorego, had decided toaccompany Paramount Chief Sekoto and would stay over in his villagefor the funeral. The rest of the dazed and stunned villagers slowlybegan to make their way homeward, still unable to utter a word. Youhave to be loved a bit by the time you die. People can only say goodthings about the dead, and if you’ve left no treasures on this earth,what’s there to hold on to except a terrible pity? Perhaps the people ofGolema Mmidi were afraid, too, that they had really killed Matenge, ina strange gathering-together of all their wills. It was as if they did notwant any evil to impose itself on them, and they had all quickly and si-lently decided to suppress it. They found it difficult now to break thecohesion and singleness of purpose that had drawn them together thatday. Until late that night they kept on grouping and regrouping in eachother’s yards, drinking bowls of sour milk porridge, discussing theweather and how hot it had been that day. But not once did they men-tion the name of Matenge, though he was in all their thoughts, hover-ing like a great, unseen shadow over the whole village.

This strange mental disassociation from the events of the dayalso took place in Gilbert, Makhaya, and Pelotona, the permit man,when they arrived back at the farm for a late lunch together. They held

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some half-hearted, distracted conversation about rationing water untilthe emergency borehole had been sunk. But they lapsed into unexpec-ted intervals of silence. You couldn’t ever forget Matenge, not once youhad met him face to face and he had spat his venom out at you.Matenge made you doubt the basic goodness of mankind. He madeyou think of all the people who are only half like him, and this com-pletely shattered the innocence and trust with which you might ap-proach fairly harmless people who do a bit of evil now and then to en-tertain themselves.

Gilbert had been roughed up inside more than all of them. Hehad had to do a complete somersault of thought and feeling after hisarrival in Golema Mmidi. No one had told him there was such a thingas an African oppressor, nor had he expected to find a Matenge ex-ploiting his own people through the cattle speculating business. Hun-dreds of white men did it and were continuing to do it with efficientease in Botswana. But an African robbing Africans? And he had tor-tured himself through many sleepless nights at the ease with which hehad destroyed Matenge’s cattle speculating business. There were otherthings too – the pathetic way in which Matenge always backed downwhen confronted by a superior.

But if a man like Gilbert had really kept his mind on theMatenges who were an inverted whirlpool of seething intrigues, on thecrazy semi-literate politicians like Joas Tsepe, he might have over-looked the kind of people almost everyone overlooked – the Dinoregosand Mma-Millipedes. At the most bitter times of Gilbert’s stay inGolema Mmidi, Dinorego had always said: “I think the Good Goddon’t like it.” But he said it as though the ‘Good God’ was quite nearby,listening, observing, and Dinorego, his screwed-up face listening tothe ‘Good God’, was what had made Gilbert stay and stay. And hemixed it all up with a thousand and one things: the way he smelled thesummer rain on the far, flat horizon, four or five months before thefirst, fat globs of raindrops fell two by two, three by three on theparched earth. Enormous thunderstorms brewed and boiled on thesefar-off horizons, but it never rained and people never ploughed, until

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one unsuspecting day it rained in sheets and so hard that the roar ofthe rain drowned out the volcanic thunderclaps.

What was he looking for? What was he doing? Agriculture? Theneed for a poor country to catch up with the Joneses in the rich coun-tries? Should super-highways and skyscrapers replace the dusty foot-paths and thorn scrub? It might be what he said he had in mind; atleast, he said this to excuse himself for the need to live in a hurricaneof activity. But the real life he had lived for three years had been dom-inated by the expression on Dinorego’s face, and God and agriculturewere all mixed up together after these three years. Yet it was a realGod this who stalked his footsteps along the dusty pathways, wholistened with quiet interest to the discussions on agriculture. Gilberthad no clear explanation of how he had become certain of this, butthere was a feeling of great goodness in this country.

But Mma-Millipede had the beginnings of an answer as to whyeverything was so mixed up. She had traced the course of man’s wholedestiny through her studies of the wandering tribes of Israel. Some-times a man’s God was like Solomon and he decked himself up in goldand he built a house that was a hundred cubits in length and fifty cu-bits in breadth and thirty cubits in height. Gold candlesticks, cher-ubims, and pomegranates adorned his house, which had forty bath-rooms. And there were bowls and snuffers and spoons and censers anddoor hinges of pure gold. And all that the followers of Solomon coulddo was to gape and marvel and chronicle these wonders in minute de-tail. Even Solomon’s wisdom took secondary place to his material pos-sessions and dazzling raiments. Then came a God who was greaterthan Solomon, but he walked around with no shoes, in rough cloth,wandering up and down the dusty footpaths in the hot sun, with nobed on which to rest his head. And all that the followers of this Godcould do was to chronicle, in minute detail, the wonder and marvel ofhis wisdom.

There were two such destinies which faced Africa – that of thefollowers of Solomon and that of a man with no shoes. But the manwith no shoes had been bypassed, scorned, and ridiculed while the So-lomons stalked the land in their golden Chevrolets. Who would eat

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then if all the gold and pomegranates went into the house of Solomon?Who would bathe if all the water went into his forty bathrooms? Whowould have time to plough if everyone had to join the parade to watchSolomon pass by in his Chevrolet of molten gold, his top hat and silkshirt, glittering in the African sun? For that’s all that Solomon wants –a lot of gapers and marvellers. And things were mixed up becausethere were too many Solomons and too many men with no shoes, andno one could be certain who would win out in the end – except that theman with no shoes was often too hungry to stand in the parade thesedays.

And that was what it boiled down to in the end – a silent andfascinating battle between the Solomons and aspiring Solomons likeJoas Tsepe, and the God with no shoes. The Solomons made the mostnoise in the world, hopping from one international conference to an-other, bowing and scraping to the left and right. But the God with noshoes continued to live where he always had – in the small brownbirds of the bush, in the dusty footpaths, and in the expressions of thinold men in tattered coats. He was just wondering what all the fuss andclamour was about, you know, these international brotherhoods, thesounding brass and tinkling cymbals, because he really owned theworld and the fish in the ocean. It amused him to see all these fellowsstrutting about, with no humility, forever scheming and plotting togain what would never be theirs.

The way this God with no shoes carried on might easily deludeyou into thinking he was a charming halfwit like Paramount ChiefSekoto or hesitant about truth like Mma-Millipede or tortured and tor-mented like Makhaya. He changed about from day to day contradict-ing and confusing himself by all he had to learn, never certain of any-thing the way the fortune-tellers were. He had upset Makhaya this dayby stacking the cards one way and then toppling them another. He hadpacked all these cards up in a precarious pyramid and stood by whileMatenge picked off the topmost card. It would have been different hadMatenge really victimized Paulina for whatever he wanted to victimizeher for. Maybe her association with Makhaya. But then a man likeMakhaya would not have stood by with tied hands. He would have had

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blood on his hands by now and been in some cell, with GeorgeAppleby-Smith lecturing him on how he had let him down. But theGod with no shoes, with his queer, inverted reasoning, had broughtMakhaya, a real and potential murderer, face to face with the body ofMatenge just hanging there and hanging there.

“Don’t you see?” he said softly. “Murder is small-mindedbusiness.”

Did you really trust a God like that? He made you take a longand perilous journey along a road where everyone threw things at you.Then he said you were small-minded if you wanted to throw thingsback. Why didn’t he do something about the throwers then? Becauseone Matenge died and another replaced him, and no matter which wayyou turned there was always a Matenge there to throw something atyou. And Makhaya knew that that day was always ahead of him. Hewould come face to face with one of these grinning, ghoulish oppress-ors and have nowhere to run any more. And he would just lift up hisarm and knock him dead with a mighty blow, right between his grin-ning eyes. And he might turn round to this invisible God who tormen-ted his life with question after question and knock him down too.Someone had to go into oblivion – either a Makhaya or the oppressor.And Makhaya did not mind if it was he. Because a man could not go ontaking it, all the filth and lies and hypocrisy. He might like to step rightout of it into a black, silent death, never to live again.

“What are you thinking about, Mack?” Gilbert asked, at last, ina tired, depressed voice.

Makhaya raised his hands with a helpless gesture. “I don’tknow,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m thinking at all.”

It was this quiet, hollow feeling inside all of them that madethem feel so low. It was as though they had strained so hard against aheavy, unyielding door, only to find it wasn’t there any more. Theycould not, all at once, total up the good things in this struggle, how ithad made them true comrades, how they would not ever have clarifiedtheir ideas had they not lived under the shadow of blind oppression.These things would come with tomorrow, when all the hard work hadto be done and even Makhaya would find, in spite of himself, that he

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had to live and give up his morbid speculations on oppressors and op-pressed. Even this Good God whom Dinorego said was ‘everywhereabout’ stood watching them that evening with an amused look in hiseye. Why didn’t Gilbert talk about how exciting irrigation farmingwould be in Golema Mmidi? Everyone would want to do it now. Justlook at the way everyone was shocked out of their minds! Did this fel-low Gilbert think progress was as easy as learning to drive a tractor?People had to be given shock after shock to wake them up good andthoroughly, and preparations for progress took place long before pro-gress even started. As for the oppressors! Did you mean Joas Tsepewould win the election as councillor for Golema Mmidi? Maybe any-where else but not in Golema Mmidi. They would much prefer Mma-Millipede, who mixed up spiritual counselling with practical adviceand whom the Good God had long prepared for this position. In fact,there was not anything he would not do for a village like GolemaMmidi, which was a place he had especially set aside to bring all his fa-vourite people together. He wanted them to show everyone else justhow quickly things could really change, how ordinary people could getup and do things for themselves and produce enough for their needsand have some left over for sale. But why were they all so boring thisevening? Ah, but he was a little bored too. His favourite mouthpiece,Dinorego, was away at the funeral.

Therefore the Good God cast one last look at Makhaya, whomhe intended revenging almightily for his silent threat to knock himdown. He would so much entangle this stupid young man with mar-riage and babies and children that he would always have to think, nottwice but several hundred times, before he came to knocking anyonedown.

He wandered along the footpath, in the direction of the sunset,and stopped for a while in the yard of Paulina Sebeso. She was busy ather smoke hazy fire, preparing supper, but she paused and looked upexpectantly as she heard familiar footsteps. It was Makhaya cominghome. His long dismal train of thought made him overlook the still,glorious ball of hot, red light which hung in the sky. He was about tostart saying those impractical things to Paulina, you know, like this

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world is not a fit place to live in, but she came rushing towards himwith her hands outstretched because she had been deeply frightenedat the way he had walked up the steps of Matenge’s house, as if hewould just be swallowed up by a monster and would not mind. He waslike the wind or a fluid substance you could not hold on to. Shegrasped hold of his hands with that half-laughing, half-puzzled expres-sion, perhaps even shocked to feel that his hands were large, solidbone, slightly warm and damp. He was solid all over, strong and mus-cular, but the inside of him, the expression of his face was so strangeand unreal. What did you say to such a man?

She asked, “Will you have some food?”He smiled. She was the best of all women he had known – no

sulks, no dead eyes, no dead anything about her.“So much has happened so quickly,” he said. “I forgot to ask

you if you’d like to marry me. Will you, Paulie?”After all, he had said he wanted to marry someone. Didn’t he?

But even though Paulina said yes a bit too quickly, she hardly believedit. As though everything was uncertain, new and strange and begin-ning from scratch.

EOF

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